Covid Pass in Lithuania and Throughout Europe
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Of course there is pressure from the government to get vaccinated. We're talking about public health. It's not a personal decision anymore than the MMR or polio vaccines.
The world will be made by the people browsing HN. Programmers will be the new blue collar workers whose decisions will impact our infrastructure more than almost anybody.
Holding views like this is a scary proposition for the new world we're entering. I am deeply disturbed by how pronounced the desire for authoritarianism is among this group of individuals.
We are supposed to be better than this. Free software is all about freedom - not conformity. It is about having the freedom to maintain one's privacy and not having to explain yourself for wanting to maintain that position. The code is the code, but motivations for that code are wholly irrelevant.
Instead we appear to be drifting in the direction of "open source" - full of wining babies who demand things from the select few with the actual talent with complete disregard for other people's rights, motivations, talents, and interests.
It's a miracle that installing McAfee Antivirus software on our computers was never a government-mandated law.
I am tired of this false equivalence. Shall we compare them?
The MMR and polio vaccines:
- are very effective
- give lifelong immunity
- target very dangerous diseases
- diseases which are particularly dangerous to children
The Corona vaccines:
- are mildly effective (they reduce symptoms certainly, but infections are still very common among the vaccinated, and so is spread)
- immunity fades rapidly
- target a disease which is not that dangerous
- and is particularly not-dangerous for children
I can see why it may be justifiable to mandate MMR and polio shots (though actually, where I live neither are mandated). The people most at risk (children) are not able to give consent, so it is arguably justifiable for the state to override parental wishes in such cases. I cannot see how it is justifiable to mandate the corona vaccines. The people who are actually at serious risk are perfectly capable of giving consent -- or not. Forcing it is a violation of bodily autonomy, pure and simple.
"Public health" cannot be a universal excuse to tell people what to do. Obesity is also a major risk factor for coronavirus; are we also going to bar fat people from participation in society, on the excuse that they are burdening the health system?
Are very effective in preventing serious disease
> target a disease which is not that dangerous
The 700k dead in the US might disagree (I mean, those that didn't die neck deep in the mud believing it to be a mere puddle)
As for 700k deaths -- yes, 700k mostly old, mostly already unhealthy deaths in a country of 320 million people, tallied across two years. This is not a civilization-ending plague. Moreover, almost all of the at-risk demographic already has been vaccinated. So if they are as effective as you imply, what is the justification for forcing it on everyone else? You cannot simultaneously claim that they are so effective, and at the same time that everyone must be vaccinated in order to protect the at-risk people who are themselves already vaccinated. It is a deranged contradiction.
As the father two premature children who were highly immunocompromised for the first 6 months of their life or so, this is a very personal issue.
You might want to look up the actual efficiencies of common vaccines (and how many iterations did it take to get them to that point)
> Have you ever heard of such a thing before, for any other shot?
A vaccine that was proven to be reasonably effective and with minor side effects in only one year? It's the result of several decades of innovation.
Or do you think every previous vaccine was perfect?
The COVID vaccines are 95%+ effective against the original COVID virus. This is better than some of the vaccines we routinely give out, and worse than some.
- lifelong immunity
One of our routine vaccinations (tetanus) needs booster shots every ten years. Some routine vaccinations need 4 doses before effectiveness. And this is for diseases that aren't mutating.
The COVID "waning immunity" story is a red herring. All vaccinations only produce antibodies for a few months -- B cells etc provide immunity after a few months for COVID and every other viral vaccine.
- target a disease which is not that dangerous
COVID has a fatality rate between 0.2 and 1.0 %. This is higher than the death rate for measles and many other diseases we routinely vaccinate for.
- and is particularly not-dangerous for children
700 dead children in the US would disagree. It's not a high rate of death but is similar to other causes (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsr1804754)
If we had to live with that rate of childhood death we could, but vaccines are so cheap and side-effect free we shouldn't have to.
Ten years is much longer than ten months, which is how long the corona vaccines have been around.
Waning immunity is not a red herring. The entire mass vaccination strategy was predicated on the idea that everyone would get one or two doses and the virus would be defeated and we go back to normal. Spare me this motte/bailey sophistry.
Measles: again you conflate a disease that attacks children with a disease that does not. The 0.2-1% mortality figure for measles is almost entirely concentrated among children. Rate of child death from corona is negligible. You bring up 700 dead children from corona -- yes this is a tragedy, but it is comparable to influenza. A bad flu season will see something like 500-600 under-18s die in USA over course of a year (and is your 700 figure for a single year, or summed across both pandemic years?). I am sorry but we cannot shut down society for this.
I didn't say we shut down for 700 deaths. But that number is enough to justify minor interventions, like masking until a vaccine is available for every one, and then vaccinating broadly.
85% would likely be enough to stop the original COVID variant, but Delta is much more transmissible and likely needs a 90% vaccination rate. And that 90% has to be widespread -- pockets of lower vaccination rates can incubate the disease.
And until we vaccinate children, every school is an incubator.
Yes, it reduces ICU and deaths in risk groups A LOT, but it doesn't explain forcing or pressuring people out of risk groups to vaccinate.
There's more information constantly flowing in now, how under reported all the different complications and side effects vaccines can cause actually is now. And why is it under reported? Because of the whole propaganda of "vaccines are safe and effective, can't do you harm, if you believe otherwise you are anti-science moron".
People even if they have long lasting side effects they are ridiculed when they go to doctor's and same with their families. No reporting going on about this at all. I've read over 1000 anecdotal stories by now, where similar set of circumstances happen, although if you read those stories it would be obvious that these are not coincidences, imagination of people or anything remotely like that.
It's great that a recent video came out where Kyle is interviewed by Dr John Campbell about his experience with doctors.
If you want to talk about side effects, lets talk about the side effects of COVID. I've got a friend with Chronic Fatigue as a side effect from H1N1, a really nasty disease. She's on long term disability and the economy so all of us insurance customers and taxpayers are paying for her support for 25+ years instead of her being gainfully employed. Widespread long COVID is going to cause massive suffering to people and the economy.
1. Post vaccine long term side effects are severely under reported. I don't know by how much, though.
2. Doctors generally don't take patients seriously who claim they have some issues from vaccines. These rarely get reported.
I also think that covid is terrible and likely has higher chance of causing long term damage, and this is why I have elected to stay home. I'm staying home until there's more awareness of both, long covid, and vaccine complications and more info about treating either of those.
You might also want to take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7inaTiDKaU
I have read over probably 1,000 anecdotal stories right now, and there's similar pattern every time, despite symptoms being so similar, doctors rarely believe vaccines could be the cause.
The world has administered 4B doses of COVID vaccines. Risks have been bounded to a pretty low level.
So the research group React19, for instance which is dealing with vaccine complications since end of 2020, supposedly has 5,000 people it has been in contact with (from where supposedly 6 people had committed suicide - according to Kyle, who's also been talking with the group). They have conducted a survey, there was a following question:
Are you the only one in your family to have a persistent adverse reaction to the vaccine? Yes: 142 No: 13
So out of 155 respondents, 13 had another family member who had persistent adverse reaction. What is the average count of family members per people? This implies a lot more frequent persistent adverse reactions from vaccines that is generally reported so far.
At least I would like this being addressed somehow.
And similarly looking at anecdotal stories, there are often couples who have had persistent adverse effects, and there was just now a video story John Campbell showed where 2 training partners together were diagnosed with one pericarditis and the other one with myocarditis. If there's multiple people together getting this diagnosis with the frequency I'm seeing, it seems it's generally under reported.
According to the same survey top symptoms are
1) Fatigue
2) Brain fog
and heart issues only comes next.
I definitely don't want 1) and 2) either, so I'm just waiting for someone to address all of this.
And those are nasty diseases. I have one friend with Guillaim Barre as a side effect of H1N1, one friend with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as a side effect of H1N1 and a cousin with Lupus.
So doing all you can to avoid these diseases is smart.
Which means getting COVID and flu vaccines. Even if the vaccine causes these chronic diseases, it does so at a very low rate compared to the actual disease. Millions of Americans already have long COVID. Herd immunity may eventually protect future generations of Americans and current citizens of New Zealand and Singapore, but it's not going to protect the current citizens of the US.
E.g. for example, currently I calculate myself to be near people that in theory it would be possible to catch covid only around 5-6 hours per week, 3h from it outside, and 3h inside gym at times when gym is fairly empty and it's easy for me to hold a 3m+ distance from everyone. Besides that I work from home, and order everything in.
Considering everyday infection rate I can calculate from that what my chances of getting covid are based on how much I think other people on average spend around other people, or their families. This would be back of the napkin calculation, but wouldn't that be fair to assess chances of getting covid?
These may be some odd coincidences -- although personally based on my readings of those anecdotal stories I don't see how. But even if let's say they might be coincidences, how can I know for sure?
I also thought and am aware of the fact if there's a disease that is diagnosed at least e.g. 365,000 times a year and if all people would eat ice-cream once a year, then there would be 1,000 people getting that diagnosis just the next day, but I feel like the patterns are too similar for the stories I've read.
In comparison you're at much higher risk than they were since you're not in isolation. COVID is endemic in the US and most of the world, so your chance of eventually getting it is approximately 100%.
Once you get it, your risk of dying is between 1 and 20 in 1000 depending on your age and risk factors. Your risk of getting long COVID is approximately 1 in 10. Most long COVID isn't chronic illness, but some is, and it's awful.
In comparison, your risk of a mild heart infection from the vaccine is less than 1 in 100,000 and any other risks are less than that.
I have seen this from many anecdotal stories, but also here's one that is available as a video post - for added legitimacy:
https://youtu.be/Gz0I_v-ihsE?t=1395
This is for heart issues.
Besides that with most of those stories it goes hand in hand that doctors don't know what to diagnose, or they have no idea how to treat what they are seeing and it doesn't end up get reported as well -- this is what I've seen as a pattern from all the stories I've read.
By the way, I really wish I could just do the shot, since I'm tired of being afraid as well, so if someone managed to convince me that I'm worrying about nothing, it would be great.
For example with the arguments that you made, I don't see how it's mathematically, statistically or in any way likely/possible, that heart inflammation rate is just 1 out of 100,000 or less.
The reason being I've seen reports of multiple people getting the diagnosis after the vaccine together, as one example in the video that I showed.
Back of the napkin math again: Let's say we have 2 billions of vaccinated people. And let's divide this into 2 groups of 1 bil, and let's say that for each person there's one other person in the other group that they are most connected or tied to, e.g. it could be said that they are partners or a couple. Because the way I've tried to understand how serious the issue could be is whether in those anecdotes I see both people having issues.
If the likelihood is 1 out of 100,000, then we would expect from group A to end up with 1B/100K, I would expect to see 10,000 affected people over the world.
Now, for each of those 10,000 they have a partner from the group B. The chances for each of their partners to have this same issue should be 1/100,000.
So this comes to roughly there being only a chance of 10% (around 9.5% to be a bit more precise) for there to be any partners with long term issue. So we have this anecdotal video from YouTube. Is whoever sent the video doing a hoax? And the other anecdotal stories with couples/partners both having long term issues, are all of those hoaxes?
I'm in one of the age groups and genders having the highest chances of heart inflammation issues and one at the same time one of the lowest to have issues with covid.
I agree that long covid is a real danger, but just recently some study came out that vaccines may not reduce chances of long covid, just hospitalisations/deaths.
I mean there's too much data that doesn't make sense, the anecdotal stories I'm seeing don't make sense based on usual claims for all the rates and Pfizer studies and everything that I'm seeing.
How can I do anything, if none of this seems to make sense? I feel like I'm slowly going crazy.
And, I would be fine with using a cheap testing kit each morning before going out.
But I want to be able to choose to have enough data to feel comfortable about taking this vaccine. Is that too much to ask?
There are perfectly valid concerns being raised by experts in the field.
If you don't have time to watch this, there are slides. https://rumble.com/vnbv86-winning-the-war-against-therapeuti...
More slides: https://www.skirsch.com/covid/All.pdf
Medical consent is your right. And you have the right to say no.
Anyone using fear and negativity is no better than a sleazy pick up artist.
Yet, the latest data out of the UK (COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report Week 42, Page 13) [1] shows that the double-vaccinated are around TWICE as likely to catch COVID-19 (and according to the CDC, the viral load of a vaccinated person is the same as an unvaccinated person due to the vaccines being systemic and not mucosal vaccines).
This leaves two possible reasons for vaccine passports;
1) To punish the unvaccinated for not taking the vaccine.
2) To reduce the burden on the health system. But in a country nearing 90% double vaccinated, this point holds less weight.
What are peoples thoughts?
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
I hope you don't work in programming or data analytics
If the answer is "of course there are more cases in the vaccinated, because more people are vaccinated", then see the table at the top of page 13, specifically the last 2 columns showing cases per 100,000 population. For age range 30-39 and above, the rates per population in the vaccinated are higher than the unvaccinated.
Compare that to the data from the UK vaccine surveillance report, and you'll see the opposite is true in reality (for age ranges 30-39 and above).
For example, for age range 30-39, between week 38 and 41 2021, there were 956.7 cases reported per 100,000 among the vaccinated, and 751.1 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated.
Anyway: in Germany the numbers are: 4 times more probable for the unvaccinated. I all depends on how people protect themselves, and that is the reason for vaccination passes: less infections, much less symptoms, much much less hospitalisations, almost no deaths in otherwise healthy people under 80 = no lockdowns.
That is exactly how they are separated. What else would "Rates among persons vaccinated with 2 doses (per 100,000)" and "Rates among persons not vaccinated (per 100,000)" mean?
Evidently the vaccines in Germany are working more effectively. That's good news!
"The rate of a positive COVID-19 test varies by age and vaccination status. The rate of a positive COVID-19 test is substantially lower in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated individuals up to the age of 29. In individuals aged greater than 30, the rate of a positive COVID-19 test is higher in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated. This is likely to be due to a variety of reasons, including differences in the population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people as well as differences in testing patterns."
Ref. 2nd-last and last columns of Table 2 on Page 13.
That's definitely not the primary, or only reason. In many states, hospitals are severely underfunded and aren't ready for the influx of patients. Stop trying to make it sound like a vaccine passport has no rationale, not to mention, trivialize the amount of freedom Australians have had during the pandemic, compared to other counties.
Freedom? This depends on the state. In Victoria, we had the longest lockdown in the entire world.
I'm never taking the so-called 'vaccine'. I believe there is a sound empirical basis to question pretty much all aspects of the conventional narrative.
I think I can hold out for a while yet, but I'm resigned to the fact that at a certain point the current deprivation of rights/isolation/demonisation stage may give way to outright genocide of the unvaccinated. The writer describes how the government of Lithuania are moving towards coercion with the threat of denial of food and shelter via denial of income; that's already not far off a death sentence in a Baltic winter. Going back to the facts I'm not yet convinced this is a particularly lethal disease. Does it really justify exterminating people that refuse to give up their bodily autonomy? I saw a sticker that was along the lines of 'a vaccine that doesn't work, for a disease that's so lethal you have to be tested to know whether you've had it'. I've yet to be convinced this isn't valid.
If/when (more than likely when rather than if here in the UK, depressingly) this happens here I will have to flee. To be honest, with many of the vaccinated apparently having been turned, Rwanda style, into take-no-prisoners zealots, I wish there were a free country that people like me could move to and be isolated from the ROW, with the agreement that we stay in this country and never travel to the COVID-tyranny zone. If the vaccinated do not want me in their society, well, I have a message for you: at this point the feeling is kind of mutual. I suspect the land of the unvaccinated and free would do rather well.
I've been keeping tabs on other countries to see those where the flame of freedom has not yet been extinguished, but it's pretty difficult to ascertain given that I'm living in one the main pushers of the COVID (WEF/Great Reset?) agenda. Does anyone know of a single website that aggregates this data?
the author should tell us he how being unvaccinated affects those in need of hospitalisation but cant access it since ICU are swamped by those who could have avoided hospitalisation is vaxxed.
the selfishness is utterly appalling and i fail to understand why the eu keeps financing these states. have a large mass of unvaccinated people? deal with the next waves yourselves and dont send your covidiots to work in our countries. simple as that.
It might be correlated (they might not be in danger of this because they have said restrictions), but that makes it very hard to convince people.
I personally do think that restrictions at this point are kinda pointless (at least in Europe). We've had enough time to get vaccinated and unless we're planning to live with these restrictions forever now, there is little point on keeping them active.
Postponing it more makes it worse on my opinion, because the vaccines lose potency with time.
But I'm just a random person from the internet.
Yes, but i'll tell you, the physicians are fed up (or at least the emergency physician i know is). Working in a hospital during the crisis was not pro-bono, but close. His 70-hour weeks for 6 week and his "vacations" (known as week-end for the rest of us) for the remaining of 2020 did burn him a bit. At least he got some "thank you".
Did you ever had a client (or a boss) that wanted you to implement something that you knew would create issues, and ignored your advices. You helped him anyway, mitigated the loss because you worked harder than your were paid to, even taking time of your week-end to help. He said thank you, but did not offer a significant pay raise. Then, 4 month later, the EXACT same thing happen. Do you focus on other client? Do you quit to find a new job?
I wouldn't be mad if my cousin refused to take care of Covid patients, especially unvaccinated ones. I know he morally, physically, can't but tbh i would've quit last year if i where him. I guess that's why i'm not in the field.
Literally all developed nations had their hospitals swamped. In western europe this is no longer an issue since many have gotten vaccinated.
I remember reading that Arizona hospitals were "overwhelmed" but the only actual data I saw on that was a peak of 90% ICU capacity. There was a story about the maricopa county morgue being too full, but that turned out to be mostly bureaucratic incompetence.
The problem might be inefficient load balancing on hospitals, so even if, say, 80% of ICU beds are taken, you will get some hospitals that run out of beds while others have lots of excess capacity and an inability to efficiently share the load.
It would be interesting to get systematic data on this, together with some ideas on how to improve load balancing.
Yes, some places had temporary surges for which they were unable to cope, early in the pandemic. Wuhan, parts of Italy, New York, a few others. But it never happened in a systematic way. If hospitals truly believed that overcrowding were a looming threat, they would not be laying off nurses as they are in many American localities.
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/another-brief-look-at-vacci...
And by the way, obese and smokers do pay a premium on life insurance, and probably medical insurance too.
Next on hackernews: the earth is flat.
Those all appear to be far more likely indicators of hospitalization than your vaccination status, after all. Furthermore, when these overweight smokers with poor diet seek other care for their primary illnesses, I would imagine they get thrown onto the streets and told to get to the back of the line so that the more deserving people can get care first?
Despite this the government has just pushed back the return to normality yet again. They drafted a "vaccinate our way out" plan that would almost certainly fail because it allegedly requires some fraction of the populace in excess of 92% to comply. When it failed, they accused that fraction of spoiling their plans. And then, rather than accepting their failure and moving on, they began punishing the entire populace for it for an indeterminate amount of time.
Perhaps in other countries with higher rates of vaccine hesitancy the story is different. But in my mind, the responsibility here lies with those who made getting our lives back contingent on an outcome that was never realistically going to occur.
Are you suggesting all these photos are forgeries or mistranslated?
If the vaccines were 100% effective, then there is no reason for the fear.
If they were 0% effective then there is no reason for the fear.
There is no sane way to interpolate between those two values other than in a straight line.
The amount unvaccinated people transmit the disease more than vaccinated people is EXACTLY the incremental amount that the vaccine increases protection.
That being said, there are legitimate reasons that a small number of people cannot or should not get vaccinated. We should be very careful not to treat these people as second class citizens in our zeal to protect ourselves.
I got a taste of this in the spring. I am living in a country where I am not a citizen, and was last in line to qualify for a vaccine. Without a vaccine certificate, I was unable to enter restaurants, bars and some other businesses. For me, I think it was a reasonable short term restriction, but it sure felt extremely unfair to not be able to enter places, and not have any power to change that.
We ought to be doing everything we can to vaccinate as many people as possible right now, during a crisis period. I'm in support of temporary vaccine mandates and immunity passports. But they need to have a time limit that's measured in months, not years. I'm hopeful that all these mandates and intrusive bureaucracy is completely over by mid-2022.