Imprison anyone who refuses the vax!

[Mistwell]

It's always a mistake to say 'Why worry about something that won't happen?'.

Were you trying to restate a paranoid's mantra? It's usually a mistake to worry about something unlikely to happen. Worrying about everything which could possibly happen but which is unlikely to happen is a recipe for a deeply miserable life.

But then you knew that. In fact it's your entire thesis on your approach to covid. So you didn't even believe your own nonsense.

[oggsmash]

 Keep those boosters up and no worries.

[Mistwell]

Keep those boosters up and no worries.

If you're in a high risk category, by health or age, I think the boosters are pretty helpful.

[Fheredin]

You are giving the NZ government too much credit.  They are far too useless to organise a piss up in a brewery let alone anything really authoritarian

They successfully isolated the country from the rest of the world (except for the elites, of course).

...Yes, they managed to keep an already small, not particularly economically relevant, and literally isolated by an ocean nation...isolated. This isn't political willpower; this is geography. However, New Zealand does offer a case where you have people who took the vaccine, but who mostly weren't exposed to COVID, meaning that you can separate the effects of COVID from the effects of the vaccine by looking at data from New Zealand.

[oggsmash]

Keep those boosters up and no worries.

If you're in a high risk category, by health or age, I think the boosters are pretty helpful.

  And if you are not, you should probably avoid them and the vax

[Fheredin]

It's always a mistake to say 'Why worry about something that won't happen?'.

Were you trying to restate a paranoid's mantra? It's usually a mistake to worry about something unlikely to happen. Worrying about everything which could possibly happen but which is unlikely to happen is a recipe for a deeply miserable life.

But then you knew that. In fact it's your entire thesis on your approach to covid. So you didn't even believe your own nonsense.

I kinda have to poke the bear on this one. Let me give you a moment of context.

China--one of the world's biggest economies--is facing a logistics famine thanks to COVID lockdowns, a real estate debt bubble thanks to Evergrande, and an energy crisis where large swaths of the nation are suffering from rolling blackouts. Russia--the world's largest fertilizer exporter, and a large grain and energy exporter--is at war with Ukraine...a major grain exporter. Here in the US, we have a severe labor shortage, Boomers are retiring en masse, Blackrock is snapping up houses the instant they hit the market with above asking price/ cash on close offers, and the backlog of container ships wanting to dock in LA or Long Beach is just now starting to wane...because China's major ports are shut down and they can't physically ship anything.

The warning signs are plain for all to see. The global economy is melting down. At this moment I suppose a "soft landing" is still theoretically possible, but I'm not holding my breath for it. A soft landing would require many entities to proactively build towards a new paradigm. Blackrock's actions specifically tell me that the 1% are only interested in looting the treasury before the world burns down, and the super-wealthy having such an attitude will probably sabotage any soft landing hopes.

[Pat]

Keep those boosters up and no worries.

If you're in a high risk category, by health or age, I think the boosters are pretty helpful.

I think pushing the Nth booster is the wrong approach. They may make sense for a limited subset of high risk people, like the elderly or immunocompromised, but the risk of adverse effects increases with each shot, so it makes less and less sense for the bulk of the population. And from a public health perspective, the bigger priority should be getting a first dose to more people. Not coercing people who don't want the shot, because that's fucking evil. But getting more doses to high risk people in areas like Africa where the vaccination rates are very low.

[Kiero]

If you're in a high risk category, by health or age, I think the boosters are pretty helpful.

How so, given they offer fuck all protection? 90% of deaths with covid in the UK are double- and triple-jabbed. Weren't they supposed to make that less likely?

I think pushing the Nth booster is the wrong approach. They may make sense for a limited subset of high risk people, like the elderly or immunocompromised, but the risk of adverse effects increases with each shot, so it makes less and less sense for the bulk of the population. And from a public health perspective, the bigger priority should be getting a first dose to more people. Not coercing people who don't want the shot, because that's fucking evil. But getting more doses to high risk people in areas like Africa where the vaccination rates are very low.

People in Africa have no need whatsoever for the covid jabs. They're not old enough or fat enough to be at any meaningful risk of covid, and they have plenty of HCQ to treat malaria about.

They're not "high risk", which is why their death rates from the deadly coof has been negligible.

[Pat]

People in Africa have no need whatsoever for the covid jabs. They're not old enough or fat enough to be at any meaningful risk of covid, and they have plenty of HCQ to treat malaria about.

They're not "high risk", which is why their death rates from the deadly coof has been negligible.

There are no old people in Africa?

You're generalizing far too broadly.

[Kiero]

There are no old people in Africa?

You're generalizing far too broadly.

There are hardly any people 80+, which is about the only age group at meaningful risk.

[Stephen Tannhauser]

90% of deaths with covid in the UK are double- and triple-jabbed. Weren't they supposed to make that less likely?

The argument is that there would have been a lot more COVID-caused deaths had there still been any significant volume of non-injected people. Which is not itself necessarily incorrect, but I distrust it because like all counterfactuals it's inherently unfalsifiable.

As always, of course, one also has to ask whether those numbers differentiate between a death with the virus and a death caused by the virus.  Given the high levels of treatment in the U.K. I would expect by now that better than 75%-80% of deaths from any cause will be among the double-/triple-dosed.

[Kiero]

The argument is that there would have been a lot more COVID-caused deaths had there still been any significant volume of non-injected people. Which is not itself necessarily incorrect, but I distrust it because like all counterfactuals it's inherently unfalsifiable.

As always, of course, one also has to ask whether those numbers differentiate between a death with the virus and a death caused by the virus.  Given the high levels of treatment in the U.K. I would expect by now that better than 75%-80% of deaths from any cause will be among the double-/triple-dosed.

Sure, you can make the argument, it would be utter drivel of course, bourne out by our actual experience of the last 18 months. Note this is deaths with, the stats are explicit about it. Any death from any cause within 28 days of a positive test result is a "death with covid". Even though over 95% of deaths with covid were actually caused by something else.

Most of the dying is still being done by the over 80s, who are over 95% double jabbed (and in the high 80s triple jabbed).

Meanwhile, since the jabbing began, referrals for heart failure have tripled on 2019 figures. I'm sure that's nothing to do with it, though...

[Mistwell]

It's always a mistake to say 'Why worry about something that won't happen?'.

Were you trying to restate a paranoid's mantra? It's usually a mistake to worry about something unlikely to happen. Worrying about everything which could possibly happen but which is unlikely to happen is a recipe for a deeply miserable life.

But then you knew that. In fact it's your entire thesis on your approach to covid. So you didn't even believe your own nonsense.

I kinda have to poke the bear on this one. Let me give you a moment of context.

China--one of the world's biggest economies--is facing a logistics famine thanks to COVID lockdowns, a real estate debt bubble thanks to Evergrande, and an energy crisis where large swaths of the nation are suffering from rolling blackouts. Russia--the world's largest fertilizer exporter, and a large grain and energy exporter--is at war with Ukraine...a major grain exporter. Here in the US, we have a severe labor shortage, Boomers are retiring en masse, Blackrock is snapping up houses the instant they hit the market with above asking price/ cash on close offers, and the backlog of container ships wanting to dock in LA or Long Beach is just now starting to wane...because China's major ports are shut down and they can't physically ship anything.

The warning signs are plain for all to see. The global economy is melting down. At this moment I suppose a "soft landing" is still theoretically possible, but I'm not holding my breath for it. A soft landing would require many entities to proactively build towards a new paradigm. Blackrock's actions specifically tell me that the 1% are only interested in looting the treasury before the world burns down, and the super-wealthy having such an attitude will probably sabotage any soft landing hopes.

LOL yeah you're overreacting. I am shocked you didn't mention global warming and nuclear war and the decline of the bees.

Also, the ports issue in LA has nothing to do with china's ports, nor are china's ports closed (though they are experiencing delays). I mean, damn dude, you had to mention like one of the only topics I'm an actual expert on and which you obviously have no clue at all about? Like, literally the one major thing I do most days lately you had to go there?

[Stephen Tannhauser]

Most of the dying is still being done by the over 80s, who are over 95% double jabbed (and in the high 80s triple jabbed).

Exactly. Who else would you expect to be doing the majority of the dying anyway? At that point the "jabbed/unjabbed" correlations aren't reliable enough to conclude anything in either direction.

Meanwhile, since the jabbing began, referrals for heart failure have tripled on 2019 figures. I'm sure that's nothing to do with it, though...

I wouldn't be surprised if there turned out to be a causal factor either. But eighteen months' backlog on regular checkups and treatments almost certainly has just as much to do with that, if not more.

Don't get me wrong, I am a fairly profound skeptic of these treatments myself (and I am absolutely against the policies implemented to try enforcing them). I just want to avoid unnecessarily reachy statistical inferences in either direction, since I think far too much of that was used to advocate for these things in the first place.

[Mistwell]

Keep those boosters up and no worries.

If you're in a high risk category, by health or age, I think the boosters are pretty helpful.

I think pushing the Nth booster is the wrong approach. They may make sense for a limited subset of high risk people, like the elderly or immunocompromised, but the risk of adverse effects increases with each shot, so it makes less and less sense for the bulk of the population. And from a public health perspective, the bigger priority should be getting a first dose to more people. Not coercing people who don't want the shot, because that's fucking evil. But getting more doses to high risk people in areas like Africa where the vaccination rates are very low.

We agree