Argentina ready to launch nationwide health pass

[Alby]

I'm clearly in an informed minority that does not want to be forced into an uninformed decision.

You won't grow the minority by not sharing the information. Which is fine; you are under no obligation to grow the minority. It's just that by commenting publicly and hinting at conspiracies you give the impression that you do want to grow the minority.

 

[FrankPintor]

I'm so happy you feel well informed about your decisons.

So that's all you have, your arguments, such as they were comprehensively demolished, and you have no informed counterarguments, nothing at all really. OK, that's fine.

 

[Shane]

So that's all you have, your arguments, such as they were comprehensively demolished, and you have no informed counterarguments, nothing at all really. OK, that's fine.

You did not demolish anything, hahaha. The ingredients are undisclosed. The full safety data is undisclosed. The story on the efficacy of the vax keeps changing. So delusional. You put the experiment in your body and you are convinced about your decision. I'm happy for you.

 

[Shane]

You won't grow the minority by not sharing the information. Which is fine; you are under no obligation to grow the minority. It's just that by commenting publicly and hinting at conspiracies you give the impression that you do want to grow the minority.

It's called the worldwide internet.

 

[sts7049]

i love people that come in and laugh at everyone else's way of being informed (having no clue themselves what others know), and at the same time give no insight into their own source of opinions

if you're gonna call others basically dumb sheep then educate them. otherwise just get lost.

 

[Sequoia1321]

I didn’t understand the article translation well, but noticed it mentioned something about a 3rd dose. Can someone clarify if it’s required or will be required to take the booster shot? So you must have a health pass to participate in certain activities?

 

[Sequoia1321]

Regarding the political issue that Shane brought up, first let me say that Shane looks very similar (younger version) to one of the people whose Youtube Channel I’m subscribed to, by the name of Sensible Prepper. https://www.google.com/search?q=sen...A&biw=1194&bih=790&dpr=2#imgrc=jbENeda41OmDmM

Light matter aside, I will say that I’m not super well informed about the vaccine issues, and there’s so much information, but my impression has been that both sides of the issue can be wrong. On the one hand, there are respected and seemingly good experts like like Dr. Faucci who are suggesting to get the vaccine. Although it seems that it hasn’t had a strong history of testing, it seems also to be a question of risk vs reward. For example, the fact that the virus is mutating so fast and creating new strains that are getting more virulent, and the fact that the mutations happen because people aren’t imune to the virus and are catching and spreading it, makes it a very risky situation in that what will it mutate to next if we don’t defeat it. So in this case, aren’t some of the anti-vaccine people effectively causing these mutations if they’re anti vaccine and anti mask? But I agree that it seems these vaccines don’t have a long history to know better their long term effect. Some people might worry that they might have a higher likelihood to catch some disease or cancer from it. At the same time, it’s possible to have a higher chance of catching certain cancers I believe from some viruses themselves, so there are two sides to that argument, though again, no expert here, so please correct me if I misunderstand.

On the one hand I have a hard time with the idea of forcing people to take vaccine. It’s not a good idea for the government to get involved too much in people’s lives, because sometimes the government actually doesn't know what it’s doing, so personal freedoms are great in that sense, though the side effect is that people won’t be protected as much from their own mistakes, and from the mistakes of others in some cases if the government doesn’t get involved. There may be a balancing here that must be done. However, having said that, I also have a hard time accepting the idea that one can not be vaccinated or immuned otherwise, and be allowed to go indoors without a mask, because then isn’t that person spewing something out of their body that’s known to be very harmful and putting it on others? We’re not taking about the common cold here, but a very dangerous and relatively uncommon virus, and even with the common cold there are recommendations or expectations such as don’t come to work if you’re sick. At that point that person’s personal freedom may be interfering with the rights of others to not have a know deadly virus spewed on them. So maybe it might be better to not require vaccines, but require masks for unvaccinated or not immune if they’ll be going into indoors or public places. But again, I don’t know, it’s a complicated issue, there are lots of facts unknown to me and I’m not super well informed, so please educate me if you think I misunderstood something. These are just my preliminary though while we’re in the middle of this thing, with limited personal and public knowledge. Things are often easier to analyze in retrospect.

 

[FrankPintor]

Thanks for your post, I thought it was a very good summary of our situation.

...my impression has been that both sides of the issue can be wrong. On the one hand, there are respected and seemingly good experts like like Dr. Faucci who are suggesting to get the vaccine. Although it seems that it hasn’t had a strong history of testing, it seems also to be a question of risk vs reward.

I think this is exactly correct. The initial COVID science at the start of the pandemic was off, it indicated that the virus wasn't airborne, when in fact it is, and that surface transmission is unimportant. However, scientific investigations are published, reviewed and corrected.

For example, the fact that the virus is mutating so fast and creating new strains that are getting more virulent, and the fact that the mutations happen because people aren’t imune to the virus and are catching and spreading it, makes it a very risky situation in that what will it mutate to next if we don’t defeat it. So in this case, aren’t some of the anti-vaccine people effectively causing these mutations if they’re anti vaccine and anti mask?

This is also my (layman's) understanding, and you can associate the major variants with places with uncontrolled virus circulation. It's hardly a coincidence that there's no Argentinian variant, whereas there are Andean (Peru and Chile), Manaus, Kent, and Indian variants, to use the old (politically incorrect, but still useful in connecting the dots) nomenclature, all places where the virus raged out of control over a longer period of time.

But I agree that it seems these vaccines don’t have a long history to know better their long term effect. Some people might worry that they might have a higher likelihood to catch some disease or cancer from it. At the same time, it’s possible to have a higher chance of catching certain cancers I believe from some viruses themselves, so there are two sides to that argument, though again, no expert here, so please correct me if I misunderstand.

We have no history to go on, this pandemic has forced the very rapid development and release of vaccines, some of which use relatively new technologies (mRNA, protein-based). I don't dispute this, but I think that it was a race against time, and we're a lot better off than if the virus had been let rip.

The product data of the approved vaccines is published, as are the safety data. It's really quite surprising that a poster here would actually quote the link and the partial data for a vaccine, and at the same time stupidly claim that this data was somehow being hidden. It's a modern day confirmation that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

On the one hand I have a hard time with the idea of forcing people to take vaccine. It’s not a good idea for the government to get involved too much in people’s lives, because sometimes the government actually doesn't know what it’s doing, so personal freedoms are great in that sense, though the side effect is that people won’t be protected as much from their own mistakes, and from the mistakes of others in some cases if the government doesn’t get involved. There may be a balancing here that must be done.

I hear you, though I have considerably more understanding for people who can't take vaccines for medical reasons. Hiding in the immunized herd doesn't get much sympathy from me. But in any case, nobody is yet talking (afaik) about forced vaccination, rather the talk is about what can you do if you're not vaccinated. Personally, unvaccinated people are not very welcome in my vicinity, home, office, or wherever.

However, having said that, I also have a hard time accepting the idea that one can not be vaccinated or immuned otherwise, and be allowed to go indoors without a mask, because then isn’t that person spewing something out of their body that’s known to be very harmful and putting it on others? We’re not taking about the common cold here, but a very dangerous and relatively uncommon virus, and even with the common cold there are recommendations or expectations such as don’t come to work if you’re sick. At that point that person’s personal freedom may be interfering with the rights of others to not have a know deadly virus spewed on them.

Exactly, yes. Almost all of the measures taken against the virus have been to prevent infected people from spreading the virus.

For me, the only question is which vaccine to try to get for a 3rd / booster dose. It doesn't matter that I had the 2nd dose in September. I've had 3-dose vaccines before, this isn't new. But COVID sure as hell is.

 

[Sequoia1321]

….This is also my (layman's) understanding, and you can associate the major variants with places with uncontrolled virus circulation. It's hardly a coincidence that there's no Argentinian variant, whereas there are Andean (Peru and Chile), Manaus, Kent, and Indian variants, to use the old (politically incorrect, but still useful in connecting the dots) nomenclature, all places where the virus raged out of control over a longer period of time.

…For me, the only question is which vaccine to try to get for a 3rd / booster dose. It doesn't matter that I had the 2nd dose in September. I've had 3-dose vaccines before, this isn't new. But COVID sure as hell is.

That’s interesting. I knew they were saying that the mutations will happen because of the transmissions and people being unvaccinated, but I didn’t know there was data that variants are linked to countries where the virus was more out of control. It makes sense and fits precisely what they have been saying regarding why we need to keep the virus from spreading and mutating.

Regarding your statement about which booster to get, I read that there was a recent study suggesting that the Moderna vaccine seems to be “slightly” better than Pfizer, but I don’t understand how this is a slight difference, since the article mentions seemingly very significant differences between the two, not sure if I misunderstood:

Against Delta, Moderna Edges Pfizer, but Omicron Looms

A head-to-head comparison in 440,000 vaccinated veterans finds Moderna’s vaccine is slightly more effective than Pfizer’s at preventing a range of COVID-19 outcomes.

www.harvardmagazine.com

The article says:

“The study, published online December 1 by the New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed outcomes for about 440,000 vaccinated U.S. veterans, half of whom received Pfizer’s vaccine, and half of whom received Moderna’s, between January 4 and May 14, 2021. In these demographically and clinically matched groups, recipients of the Pfizer shot had an estimated 27 percent higher risk of documented SARS-CoV-2 infection and 70 percent higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalization during a 24-week follow-up period when the Alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2 was predominant. During a subsequent 12-week period when the Delta variant was predominant, the risk of documented infection was also slightly higher in the Pfizer group (rarer outcomes, such as hospitalization and death, could not be assessed in this shorter timeframe because there were too few of them).”

27% and 70% don’t seem like slight differences to me, but again, maybe there’s something I didn’t understand, or maybe they’re trying to be politically correct to not make people rush towards one particular vaccine over another, or perhaps it’s just a poor choice of words. I remember regarding J and J vaccine they were also speaking well about it and saying it’s good, but it seemed to me, as a layman, not as good as the other ones. Another thing to consider regarding the booster is that if I understand correctly they’ll be working on Omnicron targeting boosters as well to come out some time later I assume, so not sure if it might be worth it to wait for that.

 

[Sequoia1321]

Then at the bottom of the article it says this:

“The differences in infection rates for the two vaccinated groups were very small: the researchers estimate that there were 5.75 infections per 1,000 persons for the Pfizer vaccine group and 4.52 infections per 1,000 persons for the Moderna vaccine group during the period when the Alpha variant was dominant—a little more than one excess infection per 1,000 people. After Delta became the dominant strain, the researchers found an additional 6.54 infections per 1,000 persons in the Pfizer group.”

This seems more like a “slight” difference, but I don’t get why at the above it says 27% and 70%. Maybe someone knows.

EDIT:

Here’s another article, mentions similar things, I don’t get it.

COVID-19 Vaccines

Vaccines are seen as one of the best ways to stop COVID-19. Learn more about the types of vaccines, including the newly approved Novavax.

www.webmd.com