Negatory

Okay, we’ll I’m not okay with a 5-15% and 30% mortality rate for a population that will almost surely get infected with entirely unmitigated spread. That’s where we disagree! Great, we figured it out.

There are many ideas that are not just "I support mandates" or "I don't support mandates." For example, I think that mandating vaccines for high risk populations - those at a 10%+ risk of being admitted to the hospital, based on age, gender, race, BMI, previous health conditions - could be in the interest of America. If you don't like the idea of a mandate, then let's do it economically. Maybe we should increase taxes on society by a blanket 3% and then offer a grant to any high-risk person who gets vaccinated while offering the vaccine to everyone. I talked about it at the beginning of the pandemic, but I was strongly in support of providing a temporary monthly unemployment allowance to those over the age of 60 or anyone who is provably high risk so that they could isolate if they choose. If they don't, then they go to the hospital and die on their own dime. The rest of society keeps working and chugging along. Once the vaccine came out, let it be a personal decision, for the most part, as to how much risk you wanted to accept from COVID. If you choose to not get vaccinated when you're high risk, then you do so at your own risk. And to be clear, the only reason I don't support continued mandates is because everyone has been given the opportunity to protect themselves. I would not have supported no mandates or government intervention prior to about March this year. Do you see how this is a gray continuum that is different than mandates forever or no mandates ever?

We aren't arguing about a personal decision to get a vaccine. We're arguing about ethics of vaccine mandates. You are mad at pawnman, for example, because he believes that you, ethically, should be required to get the vaccine. You believe that vaccine mandates are wrong. And your reasoning, as just stated, was because it's "anything but proven." Which is entirely based off of feelings. Numerous studies show that the vaccine decreases hospitalization and death rates by an order of magnitude. And the only statistically significant scientifically proven side effect to this point is a mild increase in risk of myocarditis in males under the age of 30. Also, your comments about "individual research" are a copout to try to legitimize any idea, regardless of source or evidence to the contrary. And I don't believe in blanket vaccine mandates, which, again, is hilarious in how you can't wrap your mind around that.

Show me any proof of this. I think this is gonna be a tough one for you. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - how do you make policy when you actually have so many unknowns? Cloth masks have been shown to be at least 20-30%+ effective with current terrible usage, increasing with N95s. I personally don't agree with using them, but it is a far cry for someone to try to say that they are wholly ineffective. With that being said, based on the risks to emotional health/interpersonal relationships, I believe we should accept the increased spread that would come with unmasking. But that is a different argument than "mask don't work." There is 100% a scientific justification that isolation prevents spread. Don't see how that is unscientific. Sure, the kids may not die if they get COVID, but I don't see how you can argue that this wouldn't reduce spread to their families and therefore the rest of America. The middle is the way forward. Maybe this is the fundamental disagreement that we won't see eye-to-eye on. Compromise and understanding is the way forward. An America of 330M people, not just half on one side or the other, is the right way.

Fixed that for you, buddy. Gotta love when bullies on both sides play the victim.

This is where you're wrong, and it would be kind of hilarious if it wasn't just a reflection of the polarization of society. I actually do not think this virus is a big deal. Haven't for a few months now, especially with omicron. Check my posts. But that probably doesn't compute, as you probably only think of people on two sides. What I do think is a big deal is the pathetic way folks argue about the virus that only sows more division. The way the right - and folks on this forum, specifically - argues about COVID is super dumb in that it takes uninformed black and white stances or, a recent favorite, uses statistics in a totally inapplicable way. The "scientific" approach to any argument is clearly with the left, because the right doesn't even attempt to use data effectively. Both sides have valid points. And both sides need to be communicated with in a way that isn't retarded, or else we aren't going to convince anyone of anything. That's why I played devil's advocate to a poorly constructed point. This forum loves to take indefensible black and white stances, and my only goal was to point out the absurdity. I am 100% sure that any solution to this pandemic that America as a whole can get on board with is in the middle. Just electing a new president in 2024 that says "fuck you" to half of America sure as fuck isn't going to help us be a better country. Stupid arguments are the continuation of the status quo.

How about we dismount from this semantics based argument where we are nitpicking words. This is what matters. The estimated mortality for those of any age from COVID is higher than it is from normal causes for almost every age. Usually by a significant margin. And the hospitalization rate of almost every demographic is extremely significant. Even folks in their 30s olds are hospitalized at a 2-5% rate, with those in their 60s+ hitting 15-30%. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mortality-risk-estimator Just saying that folks die anyways doesn't discount the fact that getting this disease will personally increase an individual's odds of dying by a significant factor, especially for older Americans. Are we really still arguing that? Excess deaths in America right now are estimated at about 1.0M.

Doubling down? If your argument is those over 60 have a death rate of 4%, then sure. Is that your argument? How can he possibly be referring to those over 60 - or how can that possibly be what we are talking about - when his literal quote was “The annual mortality of people over 70 is > 4%.”

To be pedantic, because you are, this is what I said. Don’t misquote me when it’s literally the next sentence. We’ve been talking about those over 70 100% of the time, which I have consistently used 5-15% for.

To be clear, death rate for folks at almost any age is significantly greater from COVID than from just being alive. That was the point all along. Throwing a “the death rate over 70 is 4%” actually does nothing. Compare death rate for a 70 year old to mortality risk. Do the same for a 75 year old, an 80 year old. That’s the statistic

Okay, you’ve added arbitrary constraints to fit your argument. Let’s remove those and get back to the point. More specifics to the scenario: The virus is latent and asymptomatic for 6-12 months, where it is still transmissible. Then the host experiences a very high death chance over about a month of illness. Based on this, many people claim it’s not even real. The R0 for this disease is similar to Delta, ~5-8. Scientific papers have been watching and writing about this virus in small populations over the last 2 years before it started spreading more and are relatively certain of these characteristics, although they can’t know anything definitively. You’re the president and you get to choose. Option A: Do something to limit the spread in an attempt to retain American society. Option B: Maintain liberty for the next 2 years while society likely collapses. This is all just an exercise in proving that black and white stances are asinine. I promise I can give you a scenario that is contrived enough that you have to act. We don’t have to keep going down this path, but we can if you want. The point is that there actually should be a point where the governments balance of liberty and security require them to focus on security based on those risks. Arguing there is no red line is ridiculous. Arguing where it should be is a much more intelligent discussion.

Why do I have to protect children? I don’t want that vaccine, why should I have to get it?

Please do enlighten me, how do averages work? And what is your point? Also, remember that I specifically was talking about folks with a COVID death rate from 5-15% when this reply was created, so make sure to include only the ages that that statistic applies to. Show your work. Oh and if your point is that the death rate for each age is actually lower because there are fewer males than females at those ages, then I totally agree. Thanks, I just figured that would be lost so I just halfed it for y’all.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html Doesn’t get to 4% until age 78. At age 70 it’s closer to 1.5%.

Meh, don’t play because you don’t like the framing of the questions. That’s fine. It’s wholly impossible to engage in debate of merits of ideas or philosophy when you quadruple down on an intentionally absurd black and white stance.

Here’s a more pointed devils advocate question, because you’re not actually answering my questions. Let’s imagine there is a new disease that just came out. You’re in charge of figuring out the response. Here’s the question: How many excess deaths should we accept? And the answer is not any unless you’re an anarchist, because I’ll just pose a hypothetical illness that kills 320M Americans as my example. Where obviously something like that would necessitate an extensive government reaction to stave off total societal collapse. The questions get a lot harder when they’re posed like this, which is why skeptics love to do it. Is it 1M excess deaths? Because we just got there. Is it 10M? Is COVID specifically okay because it just doubles to triples the mortality of old people? They are unanswerable, and asking people to describe very specific “lines in the sand” is unreasonable. When it comes down to it, it’s all based on feelings on both sides.

To play devils advocate, you don’t get to ask that question and not have the same thrown back at you. You’ll find it’s equally difficult to answer. What level of annual mortality risk are you willing to accept? Are you good with a 5-15% mortality risk for a highly contagious disease for those over the age of 70ish? If not, what mortality risk do you think is good? Should we let the disease spread freely throughout our society? Or do you think there should be any attempt to slow the spread? Is a 1-2% risk of mortality for those over 60 okay? What level of hospitalization of Americans are you comfortable with? How many months of cancelling elective surgeries and minor medical care are you comfortable with? I think most people went into this with good intentions. Decrease the absurdly high risk that some demographics would be literally decimated, somehow. I think we’ve now effectively done that and should call this complete, but my point is that it’s not easy to put an effective bounds on what the goals should be from either viewpoint. As absurd as it is that Fauci is arguing he thinks we should potentially wear masks ad infinitum, it’s also absurd in my view that some people - some of them on this forum - think we should have done nothing ever. There’s a balance.

We’ll just have to wait and see on cases. I am certain we’ll hit 1.0M, although many of those cases won’t be tested. Probably see 600-700k confirmed cases a day is my bet, with 40-60% not detected due to either being asymptomatic or mild. In the spirit of keeping up with the science, preliminary data used in studies shows that while Omicron is super contagious, it is significantly less bad from an individual outcome perspective. Maybe this will be a blessing to finally get everyone immunity, whether you want it or not. https://mynorthwest.com/3289906/uw-modelers-project-3-billion-new-covid-19-cases-by-february/ “UW researchers said the omicron hospitalization rate is between 4 and 10% that of delta, and that the fatality rate is 1 to 3% that of delta.” Also, rates like that - up to 10-20 times less likely to be hospitalized or 30-100 times less likely to die - make it almost false reporting to even call this disease COVID. Because it is not very similar to Delta. Legitimately, if these estimates turn out to be true, it will be significantly less bad for an individual than the flu. Only question is, will the hospital system in America be able to deal with 60-140M people getting “the flu” in the next few months?

I don’t know why, but this thread being locked and then reopened with this crap has really hit a nerve. I’m tired of these “points” that aren’t points. Are we ever going to acknowledge facts and actually debate policies based on reason opposed to emotion? Are we going to talk about things like reasonable age based policies or rotating geographic protections? Are we ever going to actually acknowledge that the real risk is somewhere in the middle of “0.00007%” and “everyone is at significant risk?” Are we going to talk about risk based policies that actually take into account things like BMI, race, or health status to more effectively deal with this pandemic? Are we going to discuss policies to actually temporarily deal with the increased real hospital risk over time in a population if we do have a large infection? Are we going to discuss the high chance that Omicron actually will max out hospitals again even with vaccines based on its extremely high infection rate and ability to evade previous immunity? About how it’s almost a mathematical certainty we will approach 1.0M cases per day in the next week? Or are we going to keep posting politicized, debunked talking points on both the liberal and conservative sides and then argue about how they’re wrong when we’ve had these discussions 10 times already? Whether that’s folks on the left not acknowledging the significantly diminished effects of the vaccine on transmission/infection or folks on the right posting bs talking points like you just did - it’s all fuckin stupid. But, just as you would say “Orange man bad” to condense an actually intricate thought into a BS political viewpoint, I guess I could just summarize your post as “Brandon XD lol”. I’m reminded of a good ole saying that generally holds true - definitely in these debates: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it.” But let’s look at his “points.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law 1) 0 religious exceptions have been passed - so what? This is a question literally just to generate outrage, but not logically. We’ve addressed hypocrisy here in other threads, and I don’t think it was successfully refuted, but I guess if you keep saying that religious exemptions should be approved then by golly I guess they should be. 2) Him asking why the FDA didn’t explicitly recommend the vaccine is irrelevant when the CDC explicitly does recommend it. Oh, why didn’t he mention that? Intentionally misleading to split hairs between gov organizations to make it seem like the government doesn’t have a stance 3) The vaccine has been highly politicized, resulting in orders of magnitude higher reporting than for previous vaccines. This is literally just how politics appears in statistics - its comparing tomatoes to apples. I agree that there are potentially mildly increased risks of myocarditis for young males - but that’s not his point. He is saying that there are blanket increased rates of adverse events - which isn’t true, it’s just total numbers. 4) Bullshit trying to mislead people about Comirnaty generic vs brand when they are chemically identical and the government treats them legally the exact same. But he didn’t want to mention that? This is maybe the dumbest argument that armchair lawyers love to cite. 5) Only looking at deaths is intentionally misleading when we’ve seen that COVID can make things like carrier or submarine readiness questionable based purely on sickness, outbreaks, or long term effects. You had COVID? It takes you out for a few days. Oh and don’t forget that 10-30% of folks that had COVID have long term effects on their neuromuscular, digestive, respiratory, or cardiovascular systems. But we can ignore that. We can ignore everything but deaths, right? By the way, you’re also required to be vaccinated against rubella and the flu, which are significantly less bad from every aspect, yet where are the complaints? Also, quick question, how many marines have died from Rubella? And I’m done here. It has taken me 10 times the energy to halfway refute this dumb video that has “legitimate questions.” Every singe one was intentionally misleading, largely fallacious, and irrelevant. I honestly look forward to this guy and similarly misguided folks like him that spout BS on social media in uniform getting their well-deserved discharges as they intentionally disrupt good order and discipline. To end this rant on an even more sarcastic note, make sure to listen to Donald Trump’s recent direction to go get your booster.

I think most people support personal religion up to the point where folks abuse and cherry pick their core values to use religion as a trump card (pun intended) to do whatever they want and impact others. See gay marriage, abortion, COVID, abortion etc. I don’t even agree with mandates for the whole population, but trying to pursue religious exceptions come off as one of the most disingenuous “You can’t make me!” temper tantrums possible - not a genuinely held belief.

It is overly simplistic to say that all humans are innately religious. I’m not, and I think you’ll find that is true for many others.

Unbridled libertarian policies that prioritize individual liberty over all else sound good until you implement them. Just like socialist policies. It’s why unbridled capitalism in the 1800s HAD to be regulated, for example. I am of the opinion that there should be a balance of individualism and collectivism in an ideally functioning society. I believe your viewpoint is unrealistic for the same reason that I believe a communist viewpoint is unrealistic. If individuals are not expected, even to the smallest extent, to make sacrifices for the good of their country or countrymen - in any case - what is the point of that society? See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

I know you, specifically, want COVID to be over. You can tell by how every about 3 weeks you post that you personally are over it. Cool. But you lack ability to provide a coherent fact based argument or use statistics, which significantly hurts your point. If 1 out of 100 people die in a population die due to a disease it is not a 1% death rate. It would only be 1% if 100% of the population got the disease. Currently, they’re estimating that only about 50-100M people in the US (15-35% of the population) have had COVID, which means it is more like a 3-7% death rate in that population. Incoming “Doesn’t change anything.” Tell me, what sort of mortality or long term effect is worth vaccinating society? I’d like to set the stage, before you answer. Polio has about a 1 in 200 chance of causing paralysis. In those cases 5-20% of the population dies. So the overall mortality risk for polio is less than 0.1%. Also, you probably know, we are approaching double the total casualties of WWII. Same comment. Your statistics are intentionally misleading and wrong. There’s about 212M folks in the 0-49 age range. There have been 52.8k deaths. That right there is a .024% chance of death. Oh wait, not everyone was infected, as previously talked about, so in reality it’s closer to .075-.15% chance of death. I can still buy that maybe that’s acceptable, but we’re talking you being off by a factor of at least 100. For those 50-64, there’s about 62M people. There have been 145k deaths. That is 0.2% of the population. Which means a CFR on the order of 0.6-1.2%. Population size source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/ COVID deaths source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ All of your guys’ analysis also conveniently ignores the fact that over 80% of those infected by the disease have a long term symptom or side effect: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95565-8 I am all for having a debate about whether blanket vaccine mandates are useful, or what the cutoff is. But I am not at all interested in BS statistics, lies, or just plain feelings, which is what significantly reduces both the effectiveness and credibility of the anti vaccine side’s arguments.

Which is why your point is asinine. 800k people have perished. 1 out of every 100 folks over the age of 65. With most of the cases being mild. https://dnyuz.com/2021/12/13/as-u-s-nears-800000-virus-deaths-1-of-every-100-older-americans-has-perished/

Cool. Always nice to be reminded of why society is ultimately going to fall apart. You think in the golden ages of America people said stuff like this? I’m all for people having informed opinions and not getting vaccinated, but supporting people just being assholes is stupid.