I thought "fuck the old and clinically vulnerable, they're going to die soon anyway" was an openly fascist argument being astroturfed to reduce the impact of COVID on business, but apparently it's also mainstream here on chapo.chat. Cool.
I'm sure you're not a fascist, but the argument you're adopting is a fascist one. Obviously I agree with you that you should have better protection at work, that your company should force customers to wear masks, properly enforce social distancing, and so on. If your business is non-essential they should close and you should get paid to stay at home (like the furlough scheme we've had here in the UK). If it's something essential like groceries then you should be protected as much as possible at work and you should be higher priority for a vaccine than anyone healthy in your age group that is in a non-essential job and getting paid to stay at home, or who's able to work from home. It's fucking monstrous that none of that's happening and you should feel every bit as pissed off as you do at the capitalist and ruling class for treating you like this.
None of that makes it any more right for you to make the leap to saying fuck the old and the sick, let them die. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of deaths and serious cases are the old and those with comorbidities, many of whom have been as careful as they could in their cirumstances. Part of the reason you're in such danger is that the exact same argument has been deployed against exactly the protections that you're rightly upset about not having! It's an evil, fascistic argument that's unworthy of you as a leftist.
I realise you've already sort of acknowledged that (if I'm understanding right), in which case, good, we agree, and I'm just reminding you that if you know your emotional reflex is towards a wrong, harmful, evil position then you should fight it as much as you can, not indulge it. Plus you have dozens of upvotes, and Randomdog's post that vaccinating a 92 year old is a "waste of everybody's time" is upvoted too, so even if you don't need to hear this, apparently some people do.
"A couple more years"? The *oldest * boomers are 74. That's even younger than that ghoul Ezekiel Emanuel's cutoff for when we should stop caring about human life.
Yes they have fewer years left than you but the risk of death from COVID increases with age fast enough that old people will on average lose more years of life if they catch it than young people, as I'm sure you know.
But long term disability from COVID in the young is extremely rare. Even when you account for that and the difference in life expectancy you're at less risk than an old person. More old people have died or become seriously ill from COVID than young people, so this difference in risk of infection isn't enough to change the priorities.
As I said to the other guy, if the science says that vaccinating people who are unavoidably exposed to other people will save more lives or more years of life than vaccinating the vulnerable, then I'm all for it. I don't think the science does say that which is why they're not doing it, but if you have some evidence I'm happy to change my mind on it. But that's not what I had a problem with
I agree that studies aren't the be all and end all, if common sense is clearly on one side of the argument. I'm just not sure it is in this case. See my response to the other guy on nursing homes.
Out of interest, why do you think it's being rolled out the way it is if it's so obviously going to lead to more deaths than doing it your way?
So to protect one old person you either vaccinate that one person or everyone they interact with? Which do you think you'll be able to do sooner?
EDIT: If there's some actual evidence to show that vaccinating people who are forced to have contact with other people most will save more lives than vaccinating the most vulnerable, then I'd support it. But note that this isn't actually what the OP was arguing:
I can’t stop thinking about how I might be potentially crippled for 50 fucking years (lol if I live that much longer) just so some geriatric can get another 2-3.
My grandmother died from covid, and my grandfather caught it and is suffering the effects. Tell me, if you wanted to save them, would you try to vaccinate every single old person in Canada? Or would you vaccinate every single person who works in a nursing home? Which is to say, are there more old people in existence? Or people who work in nursing homes?
Friendly reminder: there aren't enough vaccines to inoculate every single old person in Canada, but there is enough for all the people working in nursing homes - keep that in mind when you answer
Nursing home workers are frontline medical staff which everyone here agrees should be vaccinated first. We are talking about grocery store workers, which there is of course an argument for being prioritized, but it is a different argument to the one you are having
My point is that we need to target the vectors of infection, rather than the people we're trying to protect. It seems counterintuitive, but it actually is easier to vaccinate everyone old people come into contact with than it is to vaccinate everyone who is old or otherwise susceptible to the virus, because there are a few critical points where the virus can actually spread to them, and people staying at home are the least likely to be a vector
I don't know the math on that personally, it could be so. You'd have to factor in the number of frontline retail workers, probably the largest block of workers there is right? And then some calculation of individual risk of negative effects, cause one healthy =/= one risky. More math that I could do but presumably some epidemiologist has done that calculation and its somewhat informing policy
I'm very sorry to hear about your grandparents, I hope your grandfather has a swift recovery. My grandmother is in a nursing home so I very much hope that they get it right here.
To answer your question... I don't know. I don't have enough information. I think when you say "old people" you mean "nursing home patients", right? Otherwise the comparison wouldn't really make sense. The problem with vaccinating the staff first is that just one covid case gets into the home and now most likely all the extremely vulnerable patients have it. That could be from a staff member for whom the vaccine wasn't effective, or an electrician or paramedic or I don't know what. Does that outweigh the fact that there's more patients than staff members? Maybe? I guess the scientists think it does or we wouldn't be doing it this way.
But again this isn't my point (and in fact I'm going to stop engaging on this argument after this comment because it's not one I have a stake in). The OP was talking about a trade-off between him catching COVID and an old person catching it, not saying that vaccinating him would be a best of both worlds solution for both him and the old person
I ultimately don't really care why the OP wants it before others, I believe that the best way to protect everyone (old folk included) is to cut the pandemic at its most potent vectors - in other words people that are forced to come into contact with many other people. If the virus is able to reach the vulnerable, we have already failed. You're right in that some other outsider might bring in Covid to the nursing home, which is why I don't think that people should be visiting nursing homes during this time, unless it is absolutely critical (like life or death level emergency)
I thought "fuck the old and clinically vulnerable, they're going to die soon anyway" was an openly fascist argument being astroturfed to reduce the impact of COVID on business, but apparently it's also mainstream here on chapo.chat. Cool.
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I'm sure you're not a fascist, but the argument you're adopting is a fascist one. Obviously I agree with you that you should have better protection at work, that your company should force customers to wear masks, properly enforce social distancing, and so on. If your business is non-essential they should close and you should get paid to stay at home (like the furlough scheme we've had here in the UK). If it's something essential like groceries then you should be protected as much as possible at work and you should be higher priority for a vaccine than anyone healthy in your age group that is in a non-essential job and getting paid to stay at home, or who's able to work from home. It's fucking monstrous that none of that's happening and you should feel every bit as pissed off as you do at the capitalist and ruling class for treating you like this.
None of that makes it any more right for you to make the leap to saying fuck the old and the sick, let them die. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of deaths and serious cases are the old and those with comorbidities, many of whom have been as careful as they could in their cirumstances. Part of the reason you're in such danger is that the exact same argument has been deployed against exactly the protections that you're rightly upset about not having! It's an evil, fascistic argument that's unworthy of you as a leftist.
I realise you've already sort of acknowledged that (if I'm understanding right), in which case, good, we agree, and I'm just reminding you that if you know your emotional reflex is towards a wrong, harmful, evil position then you should fight it as much as you can, not indulge it. Plus you have dozens of upvotes, and Randomdog's post that vaccinating a 92 year old is a "waste of everybody's time" is upvoted too, so even if you don't need to hear this, apparently some people do.
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"A couple more years"? The *oldest * boomers are 74. That's even younger than that ghoul Ezekiel Emanuel's cutoff for when we should stop caring about human life.
Yes they have fewer years left than you but the risk of death from COVID increases with age fast enough that old people will on average lose more years of life if they catch it than young people, as I'm sure you know.
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But long term disability from COVID in the young is extremely rare. Even when you account for that and the difference in life expectancy you're at less risk than an old person. More old people have died or become seriously ill from COVID than young people, so this difference in risk of infection isn't enough to change the priorities.
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As I said to the other guy, if the science says that vaccinating people who are unavoidably exposed to other people will save more lives or more years of life than vaccinating the vulnerable, then I'm all for it. I don't think the science does say that which is why they're not doing it, but if you have some evidence I'm happy to change my mind on it. But that's not what I had a problem with
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I agree that studies aren't the be all and end all, if common sense is clearly on one side of the argument. I'm just not sure it is in this case. See my response to the other guy on nursing homes.
Out of interest, why do you think it's being rolled out the way it is if it's so obviously going to lead to more deaths than doing it your way?
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Actually fuck off. Old people can't catch covid if the people they interact with don't have it
So to protect one old person you either vaccinate that one person or everyone they interact with? Which do you think you'll be able to do sooner?
EDIT: If there's some actual evidence to show that vaccinating people who are forced to have contact with other people most will save more lives than vaccinating the most vulnerable, then I'd support it. But note that this isn't actually what the OP was arguing:
My grandmother died from covid, and my grandfather caught it and is suffering the effects. Tell me, if you wanted to save them, would you try to vaccinate every single old person in Canada? Or would you vaccinate every single person who works in a nursing home? Which is to say, are there more old people in existence? Or people who work in nursing homes?
Friendly reminder: there aren't enough vaccines to inoculate every single old person in Canada, but there is enough for all the people working in nursing homes - keep that in mind when you answer
Nursing home workers are frontline medical staff which everyone here agrees should be vaccinated first. We are talking about grocery store workers, which there is of course an argument for being prioritized, but it is a different argument to the one you are having
Sorry to hear about your grandparents.
My point is that we need to target the vectors of infection, rather than the people we're trying to protect. It seems counterintuitive, but it actually is easier to vaccinate everyone old people come into contact with than it is to vaccinate everyone who is old or otherwise susceptible to the virus, because there are a few critical points where the virus can actually spread to them, and people staying at home are the least likely to be a vector
I don't know the math on that personally, it could be so. You'd have to factor in the number of frontline retail workers, probably the largest block of workers there is right? And then some calculation of individual risk of negative effects, cause one healthy =/= one risky. More math that I could do but presumably some epidemiologist has done that calculation and its somewhat informing policy
I'm very sorry to hear about your grandparents, I hope your grandfather has a swift recovery. My grandmother is in a nursing home so I very much hope that they get it right here.
To answer your question... I don't know. I don't have enough information. I think when you say "old people" you mean "nursing home patients", right? Otherwise the comparison wouldn't really make sense. The problem with vaccinating the staff first is that just one covid case gets into the home and now most likely all the extremely vulnerable patients have it. That could be from a staff member for whom the vaccine wasn't effective, or an electrician or paramedic or I don't know what. Does that outweigh the fact that there's more patients than staff members? Maybe? I guess the scientists think it does or we wouldn't be doing it this way.
But again this isn't my point (and in fact I'm going to stop engaging on this argument after this comment because it's not one I have a stake in). The OP was talking about a trade-off between him catching COVID and an old person catching it, not saying that vaccinating him would be a best of both worlds solution for both him and the old person
I ultimately don't really care why the OP wants it before others, I believe that the best way to protect everyone (old folk included) is to cut the pandemic at its most potent vectors - in other words people that are forced to come into contact with many other people. If the virus is able to reach the vulnerable, we have already failed. You're right in that some other outsider might bring in Covid to the nursing home, which is why I don't think that people should be visiting nursing homes during this time, unless it is absolutely critical (like life or death level emergency)