Vaccination and other issues.

justme123
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2020 5:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by justme123 »

Well said @nathan61

You are much better at articulating yourself then I am (clearly).
Psychometrika
Posts: 74
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2016 10:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by Psychometrika »

nathan61 wrote:
>Even with the Pfizer vaccine, for hospitalization, you get an absolute risk reduction of .84%.
> A pittance. We all take bigger risks living in developing countries.

Absolute risk reduction is a misleading statistic if you don’t understand it properly. A vaccine could have a 100% effectiveness in preventing hospitalization yet still have a low absolute risk reduction. The below article explains in more detail.

Also, it is estimated that herd immunity for covid requires 80-90% immunity rate among the population. So, yes, if you are refusing the vaccine, and are not otherwise immune, you are statistically doing harm by delaying herd immunity.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factche ... SL2N2NK1XA
Heliotrope
Posts: 1167
Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by Heliotrope »

nathan61 wrote:
> It sure feels good to ride on that moral high horse and denounce those who
> have yet to get that covid shot. But fifty percent of the world is not
> vaccinated, and if you are one of 3.8 billion who is still not vaccinated
> then you are not, in a statistical sense doing harm. The tragedy of the
> commons. If you really want to save the world then be a vegetarian, lower
> your carbon footprint by foregoing travel, and stop consuming things you
> don't absolutely need. Definitely don't have kids. Even with the Pfizer
> vaccine, for hospitalization, you get an absolute risk reduction of .84%.
> A pittance. We all take bigger risks living in developing countries.
>
> Personally, I am all for getting vaccinated, and I think schools should be
> able to hire whoever they want. They can stipulate what college degrees and
> certifications you need, so why can't they stipulate what kind of health
> precautions you need to take?

I'm sure you realize that any criticism only applies to those who had acces to the vaccine, not the 40+ percent that would love to get vaccinated but is unable to. It's a crying shame that the rich countries are giving booster shots when the vaccination rate in the developing world is still as low as it is.

Experts say that sooner or later virtually everyone will get Covid, and new CDC data show that, throughout August, the risk of dying from Covid-19 was 11 times higher for unvaccinated adults than for fully vaccinated adults in the US, where medical care is relatively good. Also, vaccinated people were 10 times less likely to be admitted to hospital and five times less likely to be infected than unvaccinated people. Taking a vaccine that has proven to be safe and effective really should be a no-brainer.

You're correct that we all take risks living in developing countries, but that's a risk that only affects us. However, by remaining unvaccinated you are more likely to get the ., and more likely to infect others, including those for who the vaccine doesn't work for medical reasons or those around them. Also, with the unvaccinated having increased chances of hospitalization, they're also depriving others from medical care because ICU capacity is limited, and every Covid patient in the ICU equals 11 to 13 non-Covid patients in the ICU because Covid patients stay in the ICU a lot longer. A lot of regular care, including cancer-screenings, is being postponed because hospitals are full and staff is overworked, and lives are lost because of this.

If you really care about more than yourself, indeed be a vegetarian (vegan would be have even more impact), forego travelling, lower your consumption, stop having babies, AND get the vaccine if you it's offered to you. Just because there are other ways to help 'save the world' doesn't mean we shouldn't also do something as helpful and simple as taking a vaccine.
nathan61
Posts: 92
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by nathan61 »

I am addressing the issues that unvaccinated can people bring up, because if you ignore them then it is easy to make the case that there really is a conspiracy. A tenfold decrease in hospitalization....well if you are 35 your risk of death is 1 in 2,700 without the vaccine. We all have different risk tolerances, and maybe you are healthy and willing to take your chances with 1 in 2700. That is not crazy.
Breakthrough infections are increasingly common, and the goal of zero covid has long been abandoned, so the argument that unvaccinated are allowing the . to mutate is easy to dismiss. The idea that unvaccinated are more likely to infect others is a good argument, but a recent study published in Nature concluded the following:
"The study shows that people who become infected with the Delta variant are less likely to pass the v... to their close contacts if they have already had a COVID-19 vaccine than if they haven’t1. But that protective effect is relatively small, and dwindles alarmingly at three months after the receipt of the second shot."

So you add up the chances of getting covid, the chances of passing it onto someone else, the chances of that person dying or going to the ICU. Then you add in the relatively small reduction in these chances that the vaccine provides, and on an individual level avoiding the jab is not a big deal. The effect is so small that it has to be magnified by the millions to make a difference. This is where yelling FOLLOW THE SCIENCE leads. The tragedy of the commons type issues needs a different approach. Getting the jab is the agenda du jour, but we could just as easily take the moral high road on gun control or outlawing SUV's (which lead to increase in deaths).
buffalofan
Posts: 350
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by buffalofan »

shawanda wrote:
> It's very clarifying to know that, for all the talk here, most of the
> posters on this forum are the same. You're sheep. If you were born in the
> US in 1820, you would have been all good with slavery because having slaves
> "is just the right of landowners." If you were born in Germany in
> 1900, you would have been fine with the Jews being slowly but surely turned
> into second class citizens and then not citizens at all, because,
> "it's just the right of private businesses to determine who to let
> enter," yada, yada, yada.

Please expand on your intriguing stories equating vaccine requirements with slavery and genocide at your next IS job interview. This will surely impress the director, report back here and tell us how it went...I hear plenty of positions available in Bumfcuk, Midwest America, might be more up your alley.
ffmary
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2015 11:19 am

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by ffmary »

So, relatedly, if Search and others are now going to require us to share vaccination status, shouldn't it also follow that we as candidates can search schools on their databases that require the vaccine versus those that don't? Yet, as of this morning, when I logged in, I am not seeing any way to search for which schools require vaccinated candidates versus those that don't. What happened to "what's good for the goose is good for the gander?" If they want to go in this direction of treating vaccination status as if it's equivalent to having six dependents or the wrong passport, then we as candidates should be able to not waste our time either.

My school is requiring it, so I put in my resignation. I may retire now, which I am fine with, but I could go one more round. I also would like to remind all of you that some of us have health conditions that really do prevent us from getting vaccinated. Mine is benign on a daily basis and only requires one or two extra medical appointments each year, but if I get the vaccine my primary care provider has assured me that I will taking a huge risk not worth taking. Having some humility when you all spout out how everyone needs to get the vaccine or they are dumb would be warranted. Everyone's situation is different.
Last edited by ffmary on Sat Oct 30, 2021 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thames Pirate
Posts: 1150
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:06 am

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by Thames Pirate »

I seriously wonder about the logic of some posters. Any argument about veganism, travel choices, etc. has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Covid vaccination. Nothing. "If you really cared about" is not relevant and is an attempt to shift the conversation.

There are three considerations when talking about whether people should get the vaccine: Personal safety, collective safety, and personal choice. The science on both personal and collective safety comes down on the side of getting vaccinated for almost all people. That only leaves personal choice. For this the discussion falls into "liberty" (whether or not we have the right to choose to ignore personal and collective safety), "religion" (my deity told me to reject all needles or something), and "selfish a*****e" (I don't wanna because something on the internet makes me want to ignore personal and collective safety). Since liberty is well established for most of us--most of us are able to reject getting vaccinated if we so choose, though of course that choice does have consequences--and I don't really know of ACTUAL religions that are fundamentally opposed to modern science and medicine, though of course there may be some--we are left with the "selfish a*****e" people who simply don't want to get vaccinated and then use arguments like liberty and religion to justify their choices. In order to save face, they might also try to attack the well-established personal and collective safety. Thus the inane arguments about ARR, stupid conspiracies about microchips or infertility, etc.

In short, the only reason for the overwhelming majority of those choosing not to get vaccinated is "selfish a*****e," and if a school, recruiter, or country wants to exclude those people, I have no problem with it.
Illiane_Blues

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by Illiane_Blues »

Well said Thames Pirate.

Interesting how nathan61 just ignores the valid points made by Psychometrika and Heliotrope.
Yes there are more breakthrough cases but that's only because there are more vaccinated people.
And with the . spreading more slowly among a vaccinated population the number of mutations decreases significantly.

Nearly 80% of adults in the US have had at least one shot, so the unvaccinated make up 20% of the adult population, but they make up around 97% of the hospitalised COVID-19 patients. And over 99% of the COVID-19 deaths in the US now (9,000 per month) are people who weren’t vaccinated.
The effect of the vaccine is NOT 'so small that it has to be magnified by the millions to make a difference'.
nathan61
Posts: 92
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by nathan61 »

Thames Pirate calls the vaccine-hesitant "selfish a*****e" three times in his post. It seems he has no empathy for why someone would be scared to get the vaccine. This is an arrogant and angry approach. Trying to engage with the mindset of non-vaxed is more productive because the vaccine has only been around for a matter of months, and people can always go out and get jabbed tomorrow.

Getting the covid vaccine is just one metric for measuring a person's contribution to global health. It helps to have some humility and realize that while we are calling non-vaxxed "selfish a*****e", there is a vegan anti consumptionist living is a wigwam who is just disgusted by you "selfish a*****e." We are all "selfish a*****e", and getting the job is an incredibly modest, almost meaningless contribution to global health. Certainly not worth sorting people into in-group and out-group with so much vitriol.

I take care of my health, and I went to considerable trouble to obtain the vax as soon as I could. But I also didn't like seeing some coworkers fired for not getting the vax as soon as it was available. I think more patience is generally warranted.
nathan61
Posts: 92
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:08 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by nathan61 »

Illiane_Blues wrote:
> Well said Thames Pirate.
>
> Interesting how nathan61 just ignores the valid points made by
> Psychometrika and Heliotrope.

> The effect of the vaccine is NOT 'so small that it has to be magnified by
> the millions to make a difference'.

The vax works and is safe, but my sense is that most people overestimate its effectiveness on an individual level.

The study shows that people who become infected with the Delta variant are less likely to pass the . to their close contacts if they have already had a COVID-19 vaccine than if they haven’t1. But that protective effect is relatively small, and dwindles alarmingly at three months after the receipt of the second shot.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

This article in the Lancet argues that 119 people need to get the Pfizer vaccine in order to prevent one covid case.
ARR is also used to derive an estimate of vaccine effectiveness, which is the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one more case of COVID-19 as 1/ARR. NNVs bring a different perspective: 81 for the Moderna–NIH, 78 for the AstraZeneca–Oxford, 108 for the Gamaleya, 84 for the J&J, and 119 for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanm ... 0/fulltext
shawanda
Posts: 57
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:47 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by shawanda »

Reading so many of the responses to my post confirms my view that the vast majority of you are sheeple. Though, I am heartened as I read a few of your responses that there are still a few non-drones in this sample of the educator population. I will also call out two more things:

1. Some of you reflexively assumed that I am anti-vax. LOL. You don't know me or my vaccination status and I will be keeping it that way! That's my point. It's nobody's business but my own! You can be pro-privacy, anti-two-tiered society, and pro-vaccine all at the same time smarties!

2. ThamesPirate, one of the most self-satisfied of all posters for years on here, revealed in her argument what I think is at the heart of the reasoning of many of the proponents' of mandates and mandatory reporting: she wants a leg up in the job market over her un-vaccinated competition. She simply reeks of joy at knowing that she no longer has to compete against the likes of me. Self-interest is a big motivator for her and many other highly insecure and feeble-minded people. So while she calls others selfish and foul names (real classy!), I say it takes one to know one.

While all this madness reveals the real nature of so much of the human race, I am not letting it get me down. Instead I am using it as a real eye-opener that in retrospect was overdue for me. For too long many (myself included) were seduced by the notion that as a species we had markedly become "better" over the last decades. That somehow we had become more progressive, tolerant, kind, and inclusive. This whole episode proves otherwise. Only individual and community smugness and self-righteousness have grown; everything else remains the same. Most of the masses are low down dirty scoundrels just like y'all forefathers before you.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by sid »

Shawanda: “what I think is at the heart of the reasoning of many of the proponents' of mandates and mandatory reporting: she wants a leg up in the job market over her un-vaccinated competition.”

Remind me who started this madness by complaining about a recruiting company asking about vaccines?
angelica1981
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:28 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by angelica1981 »

shawanda wrote:
> Reading so many of the responses to my post confirms my view that the vast
> majority of you are sheeple. Though, I am heartened as I read a few of your
> responses that there are still a few non-drones in this sample of the
> educator population. I will also call out two more things:
>
> 1. Some of you reflexively assumed that I am anti-vax. LOL. You don't know
> me or my vaccination status and I will be keeping it that way! That's my
> point. It's nobody's business but my own! You can be pro-privacy,
> anti-two-tiered society, and pro-vaccine all at the same time smarties!
>
> 2. ThamesPirate, one of the most self-satisfied of all posters for years on
> here, revealed in her argument what I think is at the heart of the
> reasoning of many of the proponents' of mandates and mandatory reporting:
> she wants a leg up in the job market over her un-vaccinated competition.
> She simply reeks of joy at knowing that she no longer has to compete
> against the likes of me. Self-interest is a big motivator for her and many
> other highly insecure and feeble-minded people. So while she calls others
> selfish and foul names (real classy!), I say it takes one to know one.
>
> While all this madness reveals the real nature of so much of the human
> race, I am not letting it get me down. Instead I am using it as a real
> eye-opener that in retrospect was overdue for me. For too long many (myself
> included) were seduced by the notion that as a species we had markedly
> become "better" over the last decades. That somehow we had become
> more progressive, tolerant, kind, and inclusive. This whole episode proves
> otherwise. Only individual and community smugness and self-righteousness
> have grown; everything else remains the same. Most of the masses are low
> down dirty scoundrels just like y'all forefathers before you.

I don't see anything in ThamesPirate's posts indicating that she "wants a leg up in the job market over her un-vaccinated competition" and certainly not that she "simply reeks of joy at knowing that she no longer has to compete against the likes of me." Where are you getting that? Can you identify some exact phrases?

I don't think you understood what she was saying. Maybe calm down a bit and try to read what she actually wrote when you are less emotional.
marieh
Posts: 212
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:33 pm

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by marieh »

angelica1981 wrote:
> > many other highly insecure and feeble-minded people. So while she calls others
> > selfish and foul names (real classy!), I say it takes one to know one.

This is the first statement you've made I've agreed with. I'm glad you were able to identify another one of your kind.
mysharona
Posts: 210
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:25 am

Re: Vaccination and other issues.

Post by mysharona »

The question isn't whether schools have a right to ask and require proof of your COVID vaccination status, rather it is your right to choose not to answer.
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