That's still going to be true post vaccination.

Much less, though. Yes, the data is moving around, but I think it's indisputable that vaccinated subjects are less likely to contract the virus, communicate it, or become seriously ill from it. (I know anti-vaxxers will do everything they can to discredit the data but I'm not going to play that game.)

Yeah. But a good deal of Floridians must not care. Maybe half. They've had a string of bat shit crazy mayors. It doesn't get much weirder than Florida so far as the US goes, most of the time anyway.

But the difficult question is precisely this, presenting a hypothetical: what the heck do you do if say, half the people - or maybe even a slight majority - don't want vaccines? Would it not be anti-democratic to make people take vaccines in such a situation?

I know, this isn't what's happening, but it's a tough question, I think. But even in an extreme case like this, people who have no good reasons not to take vaccines are potentially murdering people.

But the difficult question is precisely this, presenting a hypothetical: what the heck do you do if say, half the people - or maybe even a slight majority - don't want vaccines? Would it not be anti-democratic to make people take vaccines in such a situation? — Manuel

I suppose you're right - it's a very tough question. Has parallels to climate policy, doesn't it? in that case also the greater good requires making sacrifices which the American Right seem to regard as impositions.

Could both of these be symptoms of the degeneration of public policy debate in America, under the corrosive influence of what passes for Republicanism at this point in history? (O oh, now I've done it :groan: )

Absolutely. No doubt. It also mirrors a rightward shift in all developed countries since the 1980's, with the rise of neoliberal dogma.

So, as you've mentioned Australia also has pretty astonishing right wingers, not like Q perhaps, but you see it. And Europe has outright fascist parties in most democracies.

Then you see Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Modi and it isn't a pretty picture.

But absolutely. In the US, it's magnified, not helped by the religious extremist strain that runs in large parts of the population. But how it reaches to this level of saying that getting a vaccine infringes on your "freedom", when that very freedom permits you to kill another person, is difficult to believe.

Much less, though. Yes, the data is moving around, but I think it's indisputable that vaccinated subjects are less likely to contract the virus, communicate it, or become seriously ill from it. (I know anti-vaxxers will do everything they can to discredit the data but I'm not going to play that game.) — Wayfarer

And this is what you previously posted:

The fly in the ointment being that refusing vaccination can also affect other people; you can get the virus, have no symptoms, but then transmit it to someone else who might die from it. — Wayfarer

You should understand that post vaccination, you can easily be carrying the delta variant. Yes, vaccination helps, but you'll need to behave as if you are a carrier around vulnerable people, which includes vaccinated elderly, diabetics, and cancer patients.

Read about what happened to Israel when the delta variant reached them to get a sense of that this variant is capable of.

Fortunately, the Right here are moderated by the egalatarian strain in Australian politics. Not totally, of course, but we really don't have local counterparts to some of those egregious rightists you see in the decaying corpse of American republicanism (except for on the local outpost of the global Fox juggernaut, 'Sky News').

(One irony is that, as you know, I'm a very staunch critic of 'scientism' and 'scientific materialism' on this forum, but when it comes to public policy I'm completely 'pro science'. I would never think of denigrating public health officials or the expert opinion of scientists when it comes to matters of health (or climate science) which sadly seems the norm in right-wing politics. But then, most of the proponents of scientific materialism are not actually scientists, but (often second rate) public intellectuals. Anyway, it's a distinction I wanted to call out. One of the reasons Australia has been *relatively* successful in controlling COVID-19 is because of the respect accorded to public health officers in this country, in contrast to those disgraceful 'fire Fauci' placards we saw in the US under Trump.)

Yes, vaccination helps, but you'll need to behave as if you are a carrier around vulnerable people, which includes vaccinated elderly, diabetics, and cancer patients. — frank

Of course, 100%. I expect to be wearing masks in public places and taking the related precautions for the forseeable future

Of course, 100%. I expect to be wearing masks in public places and taking the related precautions for the forseeable future — Wayfarer

Good. You understand that when you folks come off lockdown, the delta variant will become endemic there. It will be all over the place. People will die of it every year.

You yourself may eventually die from it. Therefore, don't talk about the deaths of others.

Sure. I mean Australia has a relatively rational government. As far as I know, I do remember that global warming denial was somewhat higher in Australia than in other comparative countries, due to industry interests in coal if I don't misremember.

But for the rest, your country has done remarkable well, all things considered.

Na man, I've never thought you were anti-science at all. I think you enjoy it, like anyone interested in philosophy should. Scientism is something I dislike too, it's an excuse for lazy thinking. I would maybe put different emphasis than you in some topics, but nothing massive.

It's a shame that bad ideas form the US get copied in other countries. But I suspect denialism will eventually whimper down, IF this doesn't continue for more than say, a year.

No. Darwin's evolution will winnow out the future offspring of the vaxxars. Thats why they are selfish.

, I do remember that global warming denial was somewhat higher in Australia than in other comparative countries, due to industry interests in coal if I don't misremember. — Manuel

Yes that is a huge blot on our international reputation. There was completely bi-partisan, if very cautious, consensus until 2010, when the most obnoxious of the Right in this country seized on the issue and politicized it. We had, at one point, a functional carbon tax which was working exactly as intended and would have been a major step forward in mitigation, it was dismantled for purely party-political reasons in one of the greatest acts of bastardry this country has ever suffered. (Different topic, but thanks for the venting opportunity.)

Darwin's evolution will winnow out the future offspring of the vaxxars. Thats why they are selfish. — Prishon

How could I ever hope to match such rhetorical excellence?

It doesn't get much weirder than Florida so far as the US goes — Manuel

America's mullet.

Florida Man does some crazy shit. :wink:

you are not doing your part while expecting others to do theirs. That's just the tragedy of the commons and you should know better. — Srap Tasmaner

I can't make any sense of this last in the light of your prior assessment.

If I've justified uncertainty about whether the harms of the means outweigh the goods of the ends, but must place my bet either pro or con (no half measures), how is it the placing one way neglects my social duty but the other doesn't. Both ways concern the harms to society, one from the means, the other from the ends.

I trust Darwinian selection will winnow you out before too long... — Wayfarer

I trust God to have mercy on you.

One irony is that, as you know, I'm a very staunch critic of 'scientism' and 'scientific materialism' on this forum, but when it comes to public policy I'm completely 'pro science'. I would never think of denigrating public health officials or the expert opinion of scientists when it comes to matters of health — Wayfarer

Yeah. like most woo merchants, one whiff of death and you'll prostitute yourself to anyone with a 'sciencey' sounding cure, grab a flag and join the parade. Once the mortal threat's gone, it's back to the woo.

It's an odd thing how many of those who cite things like the replication crisis to deride science (particularity my profession, in fact) are the same folk who treat questioning the medical establishment's claims as tantamount to tinfoil-hat wearing.

You know they've got about the same replicability ratio - medicine and psychology? That's what the famous Ioannidis article was about. Ioannidis was in the department of epidemiology at the time.

Of course Ioannidis has now been thrown under the same bus as anyone else questioning the prevailing science now, in our new era of scientico-religious fervour.

Just the sort of dogmatism you'd be all over in matters of cosmology, psychology, neuroscience, biology... literally anything except health, in fact.

Of course Ioannidis has now been thrown under the same bus as anyone else questioning the prevailing science now, in our new era of scientico-religious fervour. — Isaac

Got any documentation on that?

Got any documentation on that? — Wayfarer

Nah, I just make this shit up, everyone knows that.

I am interested if there's anything in the press about it. I was quite interested in what Ioannidis had to say.

Sorry, a little more cantankerous than usual this morning (and 'usual' is not always up to standard either)

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-john-ioannidis/

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/04/05/wtf-happened-to-john-ioannidis/

:up: Thanks, interesting.

If you're interested, here's the same happening to Pete Doshi, the editor in chief of the BMJ and a respected professor of pharmaceutical health services in his own right.

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/05/21/why-is-peter-doshi-still-an-editor-at-the-bmj-rfk-jr-version/

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/peter-doshi-anti-vaccine-false-authority/

Apparently for an expert in the effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions, questioning the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical intervention is a sacking offence now.

Well, I'm into the first one - incidentally the second link seems to be same article - and the author is not overall critical of Ioaniddes, says he has done some great work, but he says, he was mistaken with respect to his projections of the likely fatality rate of COVID19 in the US. He says

The wag in me can’t help but note that, as of today, the figure of 680,000 deaths used by Prof. Ioannidis as an appeal to ridicule of overblown warnings about COVID-19 death tolls is currently easily the closest to the death toll that we are, unfortunately, likely to see in the US before the pandemic is finally over.

Written in March this year. I don't see anyone being 'thrown under a bus', simply a regular piece of critical commentary about a very dynamic public health issue.

the author is not overall critical of Ioaniddes — Wayfarer

The title is "What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?", not -"a response to some of John Ioannidis's claims". The tone is what I'm criticising here. Debate in science is healthy, necessary. Questioning the integrity ("what the heck happened to...") of those presenting alternative views is a failure to understand how science works.

I'm aware the two articles are the same, I was trying to give a flavour of the coverage, it's not a lone corner of the internet.

Indeed, although they're both fairly polemical accounts, seems to me - written by industry insiders. Difficult to parse what the problem is with Pete Doshi if you, like me, don't have any idea what BMJ stands for. Anyway, thanks again for the links, I'll spend a bit more time trying to digest what they're writing about.

This is something I've said before, but it's relevant here too. There's a shift in the culture here from the separation (of scientist from crackpot) being between those who can justify their position and those who can't, to one between those whose position is widely agreed with and those whose position is not.

What's happening with Doshi and Ioannidis, is part of this shift. In one article (cited here recently, in fact) Doshi is aligned with some crackpot doctor claiming the vaccine will kill us all - as if both of their claims were of the same ilk simply because both are not widely agreed on (despite the fact that Doshi's are well-sourced, researched and founded, whereas the doctor's are plucked out of thin air). We simply can't practice science at all under these conditions.

The proper distinction between crackpot and scientist is the extent to which one can justify one's claims with proper scientific rigour, not the extent to which one's peers currently agree.

Otherwise as the infection becomes endemic we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden — Prof Paul Hunter, University of East Anglia speaking at the the UK All Party Commission

I;d say he's biased. If he wasn't he would have said "numbers that actually might not translate into disease burden (since he is speaking about studies that he thinks we should do but have not yet done).

don't have any idea what BMJ stands for — Wayfarer

Oh. It doesn't stand for anything anymore. It used to stand for the British Medical Journal, now it's just 'BMJ'. It's one of the world's leading medical journals... or just a crackpot rag, depending, it would seem entirely on how critical articles within it are of the pharmaceutical industry...

I guess traffic lights & child-proof caps on medicine bottles make you "ewwww :vomit:" too. — 180 Proof

It depends. Are you specifically referring to traffic light mandates or child-proof cap passports?

Whatever the case, the exclamation:

Bring on the passports & mandates! — 180 Proof

it sounds very soviet, and that is a disgusting idea for me.

He's talking about a known entity - the numbers of people recorded on the database whose admission to hospital was for a cause unrelated to any covid symptoms. He's not predicting future studies, he's talking about current case recording techniques. The exact same issue occurred at the beginning of the pandemic when the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine had to tell the government to change the way it recorded deaths. The government finally agreed (though several reports use the older method).

It's not a trivial issue. There's still hundreds of very serious medical conditions which need to be monitored and the mismanagement of admission data confuses the picture to no benefit.