Austria to declare nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/11/austria-lockdown-for-unvaccinated-people/

by jeremylevy • 5 years ago

52 187 5 years ago

m0zg2• 5 years ago

Litmus test on whether this is about "health" and "science" rather than mindless compliance: are people who already had covid exempt from the lockdown and vaccination? And if not, why not?

gyz• 5 years ago

They are exempt. It's "2g" rules (geimpft, genesen), so you can have had it or be vaccinated. For clubs and similar they're introducing 2g+ which means you also need a PCR test.

formerly_proven• 5 years ago

2g+

Lost opportunity for some more confusing naming there, like 2gg or 2g+g or perhaps even 2g².

m0zg2• 5 years ago

This is, sadly, something the US government is too dumb to copy. More than half the country already had the disease and they pretend it's not the case.

outside1234• 5 years ago

Makes sense to me.

zero1023• 5 years ago

we don't live in a police state...

Shocking statement that demonstrates more attempt to spin than inform.

Supposing we take the webster dictionary definition of police state: "political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures"

Considering this effects up to 40% of the population according to the article it checks quite a few boxes:

1. Arbitrary: No precedent, first in the world to do so, with no evidence this will solve the problem in total (controlling covid completely).

2. Repressive government control: There's no argument this fits the strictest definition of repressive.

3. Exercise of power by the police: There's no statement they'll use "secret police" but certainly the enforcement will be aggressive and severe to keep 40% of the population locked down. It's not like watching one person's house. That's a lot of people.

For the record, I am not against vaccines. I am however pro bodily autonomy at any cost, for whatever reason, in any condition. The "price to pay in society" isn't to violate your bodily autonomy, and therefore the non-aggression principle, but make a personal decision to avoid or interact with people you disagree with.

It turns out that all it took to test the waters of liberty and free will was deciding what you want to, and what you dont want to, put in your body. You would even think this would be a cut and dry case considering the alleged "libertarian" leanings of HN, but to my surprise it seems many people are willing to sacrifice this fundamental liberty for ephemeral (possibly even negative) gain. We're 2 years into 15 days to flatten the curve. We have all the evidence to show this won't fix anything unless these people are locked down permanently. At that point they may as well be thrown in prisons, or camps, or whatever the dictator says to do. Democracies can't simply hold you down and inject you with chemicals but coercing these people with objectively police state style tactics is the way tyrants dressed as democratic leaders effectively accomplish the same thing.

crooked-v• 5 years ago

I am however pro bodily autonomy at any cost, for whatever reason, in any condition.

Do you also oppose the assorted vaccinations that are often treated as a mandatory condition of public school attendance?

woodruffw4• 5 years ago

It goes even beyond that: you need proof of vaccination to attend any school in the US. In all 50 states. And it's been that way for 65 years[1].

The "pro bodily autonomy" message is smoke and mirrors, designed to put a palatable glaze on an increasingly fringe and reactionary position.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/school-vaccinations.pdf

zero1023• 5 years ago

do you also oppose the assorted vaccines

It's not nice to lump me in with anti-vaxxers but I guess that's how modern politics^W^W^W^W^W^W science is.

I don't take the stance that children have complete autonomy only because it leads to some very strange and disturbing consequences. Therefore, if the parents decide the child should not be vaccinated than I think that's a fine decision. I also think deciding your child should be vaccinated is a fine decision.

Where I draw the line is the prevention of attendance at a learning institution. Since you mentioned public school, then this should either have a distanced option (home schooling, etc) or permit the students regardless. Private institutions may do what they please. Yes, this also goes for public grant-receiving universities, community colleges, etc. Forcing people to manufacturer "exemptions" is simply an end-around to the government enforcing it's will upon people and their choices with their body. It's both immoral and unethical.

trhway• 5 years ago

We have all the evidence to show this won't fix anything unless these people are locked down permanently

At vaccination rates of 60-70% the vaccinated make 1/3rd of new infections (and giving that the vaccinated have less symptoms, one may suppose that the vaccinated rate of infection is even higher than the official 1/3rd), and thus raising the vaccination rate from 70% to 100% would decrease infection rate just 2 times at best, so even locking down unvaccinated permanently would solve nothing. And that too:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

" A person who was fully vaccinated and then had a ‘breakthrough’ Delta infection was almost twice as likely to pass on the virus as someone who was infected with Alpha."

"Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus."

pupppet• 5 years ago

I am however pro bodily autonomy at any cost

Me too! Have you figured out how to keep your COVID to yourself?

srslack• 5 years ago

Have those who are vaccinated figured out how to keep their now asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 to themselves?

kodyo3• 5 years ago

The CDC has recorded zero incidents of a previously infected unvaccinated person infecting anyone else. So yes.

cletus• 5 years ago

Not you specifically but lots of people have tried to conflate restrictions for unvaccinated people to various historical blights including, but not limited to, Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, South African Apartheid (google the phrase "medical apartheid"), the institution of slavery in the United States and so on.

None of these apply of course for one simple reason: a black person in South Africa can't simply choose not to be black to escape Apartheid. American slaves couldn't simply choose not to be slaves.

So policies that apply to unvaccinated people aren't analogous for the simple reason that you can choose to get vaccinated in almost all cases (side note: the very few people with a valid medical exemption shouldn't be subjected to these kinds of policies IMHO).

So it's not a lack of body autonomy that's going on here. It's just that those choices come with consequences. You don't want to wear a mask? No one is holding you down and putting one on you. But you can't fly on a commercial plane either.

I too believe strongly in body autonomy, which is one reason why I fully support reproductive rights, including access to abortion. What I find particularly ironic is in the Venn diagram there's a seemingly large intersection between the unvaccinated, those who oppose restrictions on unvaccinated people and those who support restricting access to abortions. Again, not you, specifically.

It's worth adding that this isn't purely a personal choice. If it was, I don't think anyone would be upset about it. There are documented cases of contact tracers who can directly establish links between a given person spreading Covid and the deaths that result from that. What about the people who medically cannot get the vaccine? Or are immunocompromised? If you oppose the vaccine because of the extremely low risks of negative side effects, remember your choice affects other people.

It's riskier to drive in a car than to get the Covid vaccine.

The term "body autonomy" here just doesn't apply. "Consequences to personal choices" is far more accurate.

incrudible3• 5 years ago

You are right, one can not simply choose a racial identity. A more appropriate analogy would be the Inquisition, or perhaps Christian persecution in pagan Rome. Those generally left the option for heretics to renounce their beliefs.

gruez• 5 years ago

None of these apply of course for one simple reason: a black person in South Africa can't simply choose not to be black to escape Apartheid. American slaves couldn't simply choose not to be slaves.

so the chinese forcing the Uyghurs to abandon their culture is totally fine, because all they have to do is stop practicing it?

angelzen5• 5 years ago

Conspicuously missing the persecution of Kulaks and Christians, among others, in the Soviet Union. Side note aside, some of those historical blights hinge on the choice of religion / ideology. You'd think that choosing the correct gods to worship is a fairly easy choice. Freedom of thought, freedom of religion? Pshaw, the State knows better what the population must think. For the common good, social harmony, the luminous future, etc, etc, etc...

raxxorrax4• 5 years ago

There is religious and ideological prosecution which one could argue could be freely chosen, so it is only a counter-argument under certain definitions.

aplummer• 5 years ago

1. Arbitrary: No precedent, first in the world to do so, with no evidence this will solve the problem in total (controlling covid completely).

This isn't arbitrary at all, its actually extremely common to restrict the participation in society of unvaccinated people - in countries _much_ more free than the United States.

thepangolino• 5 years ago

Can they do Jews next? /s

omot2• 5 years ago

Even with the /s and assuming best intentions, this made me upset. Sorry I'm downvoting and flagging.

dang4• 5 years ago

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls. In egregious cases you can always send a link to hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang4• 5 years ago

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments and ignoring our request to stop. Not cool.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

incrudible3• 5 years ago

The vaccines don't stop people from spreading it though...? (dead comment that deserves a reply)

It is ostensibly for their own good and to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system that, coincidently, has reduced capacity over 2020.

jessaustin• 5 years ago

Can we find a source for this story reputable enough that the sidebar isn't half "Amber" alerts?

[EDIT:] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/world/europe/austria-chan...

Ekaros3• 5 years ago

I think this isn't enough and wrong way to do things. Only true way would be maximum of 24h old test result. Anything else is putting others including vaccinated people in danger.

kodyo3• 5 years ago

Listen to yourself. This is insane.

Ekaros3• 5 years ago

No, if safety is paramount it is the only way. And I don't see it as any more fascist as lockdown for unvaccinated.

4ad3• 5 years ago

In Austria until last week PCR tests were deemed adequate. Now they aren't anymore.

bananapear• 5 years ago

Given that the currently available vaccines are all non-sterilising (do not prevent infection and transmission), it is difficult to see this as a measure aimed at controlling transmission.

It is terrifying to me that a government is confining healthy people to their homes for refusing a treatment that they (rightly or wrongly) believe is not in their best interests.

Of course, recorded cases are likely to fall naturally at some point. If the fall is coincident with the introduction of this rule, we can expect the same across the West.

arkitaip• 5 years ago

Society forcing people to behave in a certain way is a fundamental aspect of any and all civilizations. At certain points, you rights have to give way for the collective good, especially when people's lives are at stake.

MonkeyClub3• 5 years ago

"Social bullying has happened before, so accept it now, as it's for a good cause" is not the best of arguments. Fundamental rights and liberties are fundamental for a reason.

fy20• 5 years ago

I was pro-lockdown when they first started, but the mandates coming out now don't really make any sense. It seems like politicians are just imposing new restrictions because they need to be seen doing something.

In my (EU) country you need to be vaccinated to go into most shops, restaurants, bars, and beauty services. However you can freely go to your office and not wear a mask. Even the people working in places where as a customer you need to be vaccinated, do not themselves need to be vaccinated.

I'm fully vaccinated, but I have friends who are not. The people who do not want to be vaccinated have their reasons, and I doubt these restrictions which cause mild inconveniences at best (compared to lockdowns like last winter, where some stores were closed for 3 month and you couldn't leave your city) are really going to make them change their mind. If they really want everyone to be vaccinated, they should just come out and say that, then work to get it passed into law.

twofornone5• 5 years ago

you rights have to give way for the collective good, especially when people's lives are at stake

But when discussions over the degree to which measures actually benefit the collective good are suppressed, both top down (tech censorship) and bottom up (downvotes and social shaming), you are moving into the territory of tyranny/oppression.

proc0• 5 years ago

people to behave in a certain way

This isn't about behavior, unless you mean blindly following authority (in which case those civilizations had huge downsides). This is about a medical treatment for a disease that is objectively not a civilization-ending threat, by any measure.

The problem is forcing people to take a specific medical treatment (it's not about immunity from the virus, it's about the specific treatment ONLY), and using fear as a justification to control society.

What you're calling "collective good" is exactly how past atrocities have happened. Anytime there has been genocide or millions of people getting slaughtered, it's because one side decided it was for the collective good. It's a cliche argument that can go both ways and says nothing about the actual reasons for implementing force across a society.

fifteenforty• 5 years ago

Please stop spreading misinformation.

Vaccines prevent infection, as evidenced by the drastically lower COVID case numbers in the vaccinated. You can’t spread it if you don’t have it. If you do contract it, you are less infectious.

This is no different to instituting lockdowns before vaccines became available.

josephcsible3• 5 years ago

I'll believe that the vaccine prevents spreading COVID as soon as mask mandates stop applying to vaccinated people.

fwn2• 5 years ago

I don't think the "Please stop spreading misinformation." boilerplate is necessarily always hostile and provocative.

In situations where the comment is only aimed at correcting a factual mistake, for example, it can be okay, if still bad style.

It always feels as if it prematurely implies evil intention, which is a move that does not belong in any intellectually honest conversation, neither casual nor scientific.

I don't think the boilerplate should be used in comments that then continue with highly questionable, very radical statements. Especially if heterodox opinions are stated as if they were well established positions.

For example: "This is no different to instituting lockdowns before vaccines became available."

The idea that conditional lockdowns are identical to non-conditional lockdowns from legal, medical or political perspective is not just wrong, but also unnecessarily radical. The radicalism just makes the wrongness trivial to spot.

The position that actually justifies conditional lock-downs (like the new Austrian policy) is one where the discriminatory treatment is acknowledged and justified, not simply denied.

...which should not surprise anyone who somewhat followed the discourse on the issue.

I know that's not as attractive as just denying the existence of differences between two obviously different policies.

walterbell6• 5 years ago

Vaccines prevent infection, as evidenced by the drastically lower COVID case numbers in the vaccinated.

Vaccines suppress symptoms, which may result in infected people being unaware they are infected or transmitting to others. That's why the CDC recommends (as of October 15) that vaccinated people be tested after exposure, since lack of symptoms != lack of infection, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...

Based on evolving evidence, CDC recommends fully vaccinated people get tested 5-7 days after close contact with a person with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

Jansen312• 5 years ago

Covid vaccines cannot 100% prevent infection like polio vaccine. There are papers that talked about vaccinated people with higher load virus for the initial infection. Given vaccinated people tends to display even less symptoms and more asymptomatic, they are able to spread more because more "infectious". If one is severely down with Covid, one will be confine at home or hospital. Hence the OP claims of more infections is correct and it is not spreading misinformation. This is why now healthcare professionals have opt not to use the word "herd immunity" confer by vaccines. Ironically you are actually more inline with spreading misinformation by not clarifying the vaccinated can still be infected and move around way more than severely unvaccinated people. Having say this, I am pro vaccinations. It is still the right and responsibility thing to do.

Mikeb854• 5 years ago

Well no one cares about spread to vaccinated people. No one truly cares about spread except as it affects the health care system. If everyone was vaccinated, all cases would be mild and life could go on as normal. But unvaccinated people are filling hospitals causing disruption to the healthcare system and that effect snowballs.

MonkeyClub3• 5 years ago

Then covid medicine would certainly be a more liberal way to go towards; have a remedy available if need be, without being pushed to require vaccines from citizens.

drukenemo• 5 years ago

How do you know that? If you are reading that from MS news, and if you are just repeating a statement without actual numbers, you are spreading propaganda of those who are interested in promoting the vaccines (aka Big Pharma and the sponsored media). As shown in this thread , IC hospital occupancy was low in France, and I know it was the same in the Netherlands. The current occupancy numbers of vaccinated vs unvaccinated are conveniently undisclosed by the Dutch government.

simion314• 5 years ago

I think in a few months we experts can look at this winter cases around the globe and compare the differences between the vaccination rates and other measures and find some conclusions.

HarryHirsch2• 5 years ago

No, the goal is to reduce load on the healthcare system. It's well known that the Covid vaccines keep people out of hospital. There's no reason that people should interfere with other people receiving urgently needed medical treatment.

ssivark• 5 years ago

How about simply turning away the unvaccinated from hospitals for Covid care? Is that less or more humane than holding them under house arrest?

PS: I think arguments justifying such mandates for avoiding overwhelming of hospitals will further enrage anyone who was already against universal healthcare because it becomes yet another avenue for govt/bureaucratic manipulation of people's lives.

josephcsible3• 5 years ago

In that case, why not just say that unvaccinated people at the hospital because they have COVID will be deprioritized, and dispense with all of the other mandates and stuff with the vaccine?

fithisux• 5 years ago

You jump to random conclusions and "knowingly??" do not outline the whole picture.

What is the estimate of the authoritarian rules of increasing mortality? E.g. by a war? By racial cleaning, by collapse of social structures?

You spread half information and consequently fake. The legislation is there for a reason and you throw it away. You just took a decision for the uncaccinated people by eliminating their freedom. They never did it to you.

IdontRememberIt• 5 years ago

In France, during the whole year 2020, people were told that the hospital infrastructure was overloaded because of COVID.

Actually, the final report shows that COVID patients represented 2% (!!!) of the total hospitalized... And only 5% (!?!?) of what they call "critical care"...

This report from the ATIH (Official agency) was published in october 2021.

The report: https://www.atih.sante.fr/sites/default/files/public/content...

From LCP (a kind of French C-SPAN): https://twitter.com/LCP/status/1458163736175386624

anramon• 5 years ago

not been double-jabbed will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, school, exercise and buying essential supplies

This makes absolutely no sense. The most terrifying is people actually defending and promoting this kind of orwellian and irrational measures.

_djo_2• 5 years ago

It’s a false dichotomy to claim that they’re non-sterilising. They’re partially sterilising, at to at least 50% effectiveness even after waning. With boosters, it seems that returns to 90%+.

glogla4• 5 years ago

Yeah, the other thing is, sterilising vaccines are possible, they are just harder to research so the initial target for pretty much every vaccine was to reduce hospotalizations and deaths.

I don't know if sterilising vaccins are being researched now though. I heard something about possible nose-spray vaccine that would both improve this and make applications easier. Maybe well see that in near future.

caeril2• 5 years ago

This is not true, at all. The current crop of vaccines are roughly 95% non-sterilizing.

It IS true that they reduce net transmission, but the literature is clear that the reason is almost exclusively due to how they shorten the duration of carrying. The nasal viral load is virtually identical. The primary factor is how long you're carrying that load for (approximately 11 days vs 8 days from what I can tell from pubmed et al).

Does vaccination help the herd? Sure, but it's pretty limited. The reality is that vaccination mostly protects YOU - it keeps the infection in the top layer of the respiratory epithelium, ensures to a great degree that you won't be hospitalized for deeper tissue damage.

raxxorrax4• 5 years ago

If the vaccine would protect against transmission in any way, shouldn't I see a less steep flank when a new wave hits and cases are increasing? I have compared graphs with the same axis configuration and it looks like there is no difference at all. The amplitude of that latest wave is even higher in my country than when people were unvaccinated. Cannot control for factors like behavior. Lockdown rules were almost the same, although I think people take current rules far less serious. If you constantly are having an emergency, it isn't an emergency anymore...

rsynnott2• 5 years ago

So, it's apparently to protect the hospitals. While I've no idea of the situation in Austria, in most Western European countries ICU occupancy is largely unvaccinated people and severely immunosuppressed people.

So once you're close to ICU capacity you have three options: - Ignore it, likely leading to a lot of deaths. - Full lockdown - Targeted lockdown of the most vulnerable population (similar to 'cocooning' of elderly in the early stages)

Obviously, none of these are great options, but they're the choices a number of places are now facing.

angelzen5• 5 years ago

ICUs are a scarce bonus, not an entitlement. We are talking denying basic human rights to a large segment of healthy people on the off chance that a tiny percent of them will end up populating the tiny number of ICUs available in the country at some point in the future. What's next: obese people, people engaging in sexual promiscuity, smokers, babies with congenital malformations or simply old people? All of these populations have a higher statistical chance to occupy an ICU bed, so we should just ban them from society? WTaF?

bighi• 5 years ago

Good for them.

I wish other governments did the same. We could all work together to get rid of this disease, but this will never happen if we let people that refuse medicine to walk freely contaminating others.

dempseye• 5 years ago

This is an endemic disease of humans and will never be eradicated.

bsaul6• 5 years ago

what data makes you think vaccine prevents spreading ? I haven't found any compelling case that would go in that direction. Number of cases seem totally unrelated to vaccination coverage..

tfehring2• 5 years ago

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/13/do-coronavirus...

Direct link to cited study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v...

bellyfullofbac8• 5 years ago

Vaccines reduce spreading, reduce hospitalizations, and reduce serious illness

Saying "the vaccines don't work at all" is IMO equivalent to saying seatbelts don't work at all, they should be abolished, because someone wrecked and died at 200mph while wearing seatbelts.

glogla4• 5 years ago

When comparing data with last year, keep in mind that was different and far less contagious strain of the virus.

latchkey5• 5 years ago

what data makes you think vaccine prevents spreading ?

Maybe because the CDC says so? Or have we lost all faith in them?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/keythings...

"COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting people from COVID-19 and help keep adults and children from getting seriously sick. COVID-19 vaccines can reduce the risk of people spreading the virus that causes COVID-19."

chrismcb• 5 years ago

You seem to imply it is ok for people who take the medication to walk freely contaminating others.

helloworld11• 5 years ago

The reasoning inside your comment shows the worst kind of obsessive rationalization of truly abnormal, paranoid efforts to mitigate a number that by itself is steadily becoming practically irrelevant. For one thing, COVID will without a doubt become an endemic disease of the human species and is currently impossible to erradícate no matter the forced vaccination programs we throw at it, and secondly, who cares? So long as the virus either mutates into something no worse than seasonal flu and cold viruses, or we adapt to cause us a comparable level of immune protection, its spread and case numbers should be no more relevant than the annual spread of any normal mild flu strain or cold virus was before the absurd 2021 hysteria over raw COVID numbers (not even fatalities or anything that actually has any serious meaning anymore) took hold over millions of people and the politicians who pander to them.

It's sad to see how many otherwise presumably normal people so easily skip away from ideas of basic individual rights for such flimsy reasons now.

stevens37• 5 years ago

You can leave your place also for any physical and mental recreation. Otherwise you can buy everything on the internet so this is mainly bad for the local shops. The gov is rather hysterical because of the recent corruption scandal

fuu_dev4• 5 years ago

Austria also discusses switching to 1G what would mean that only people who count as fully vaccinated would not be locked down but there is still discussion on the definition and limitations of this.

There is also further discussion about requiring PCR-Tests for the non restricted groups.

fuu_dev4• 5 years ago

Some data points.:

Austria has a around 60% vaccination rate² and around 12% of the population had an documented infection³.

Herd immunity is a discussion point but scientists are undecided how high the numbers need to be. Estimates from earlier this year did talk about 60% but this number was raised and some experts even say its impossible.

2: https://orf.at/corona/daten/impfung

3: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...

fuu_dev4• 5 years ago

Regulations up to recent was 3g (since august).

The implementation was the following:

- FFP2 Mask mandated in essential services like pharmacies, grocery store and postal offices for everyone.

- No Mask or distancing mandate for anyone who was vaccinated or recovered.

- Mask mandate and a negative covid test that is not older than 24/48h depending on the testing method for non vaccinated for anything outside of essential services.

bsaul6• 5 years ago

And the next step is ?

askcvv• 5 years ago

Meanwhile, Sweden enjoys extremely low case numbers and fatalities.

Perhaps Sweden did the right thing? Unthinkable, let's repeat failed policies ad infinitum!

spamizbad• 5 years ago

Sweden basically did soft lockdowns: capacity limits, mandated social distancing, masking, and closures of schools and universities.

6nf• 5 years ago

No businesses were shut down, pubs and clubs were open and no masks were ever required to enter a business. They closed a few public buildings for a short time but nobody was ever locked down.

PeterisP4• 5 years ago

Sweden has already had more cases and more deaths than Austria, both in absolute and per capita numbers, and has a larger vaccination rate than Austria.

tinus_hn• 5 years ago

Freedom is worthless. Better live your life in lockdown, than stand a 1% chance of dying. Or actually, better for someone else to live their life in lockdown, than to have me stand a 1% chance of dying.

Jensson• 5 years ago

Sweden has lower excess deaths than Austria, so Austria just looks better since they under reported deaths.

Edit: Austria currently has more absolute excess deaths and lower population than Sweden according to Financial Times.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386...

elorant3• 5 years ago

Sweden has vaccinated pretty much all elderly people

lawn• 5 years ago

Sweden's early response was really bad, and it still has bad stats. The saving grace has been the high vaccination rate, but the total death toll is still much worse than any of our neighbours.

ploxiln• 5 years ago

... but total deaths per capita in Sweden is still below France, Spain, Italy, UK (and fwiw Belgium, Bulgaria, Russia, US ...)

dukoid• 5 years ago

Perhaps it's just hard to die twice...?

Total deaths per million in Sweden so far: 1466 Total deaths per million in Denmark so far: 471

rbjorklin• 5 years ago

Sweden is also suggesting that if you're vaccinated you do not need to get tested. "If you are vaccinated, you do not generally need to get tested when you experience symptoms." [1]

With ~69% [2] of the population fully vaccinated that is definitely going to skew the numbers a bit.

1. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

cbnlakl• 5 years ago

The influence of different testing rates can be avoided by looking at the number of fatalities. Sweden looks much better now than Austria and the overall picture is the same:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Looking at this, I also do not understand why Austria's ICUs are overloaded now but not in November 2020.

sakopov• 5 years ago

One interesting thing about Sweden that seems to fly over everyone's head is that they spend a significant amount of effort promoting health in public schools. So you have generations of people who are taught to focus on their well-being for the rest of their lives. This is likely one of the major reasons why socialized medical system works in Sweden. Soviets did the same thing and even promoted health at work places by instituting Sanatorium breaks for employees. So, with that said, we're probably talking about a sub-group of people with better natural immunity than some other surrounding countries in the area.

twofornone5• 5 years ago

According to this source [0], it looks like something like 80% of the population is vaccinated. If they are still implementing lockdowns with an 80% vaccination rate, maybe it's time to acknowledge that the efficacy numbers we've been fed are a little optimistic?

This is hardly unique to australia. UK, Ireland, Israel, and other highly vaccinated nations are experiencing record case numbers. Where is the skepticism? I feel like 80% of the population has gone totally crazy, completely unwilling to question the safety or efficacy of the vaccines, as though they were sacrosanct.

0. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-inter...

Edit: article is about austria. Still, the accusations of being "antivaxx" are dishonest. Not all vaccines are created equal. And in any case a ≈65% vaccination rate failing to contain the virus still does not bode well for estimates of effectiveness. Something's not right and the discussion needs to be had.

PeterisP4• 5 years ago

Which source? The Austrian announcement stated that roughly 65% of the population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the lowest rates in western Europe.

[edit] aahh, you linked Australia instead of Austria - that's pretty much exactly on the opposite side of the globe.

bellyfullofbac8• 5 years ago

LOL, grandparent actually mixed Austria and Australia up... well done!

latchkey5• 5 years ago

It is amazing to see the anti-vaxers here on HN, especially with a comment this high up.

The people filling the hospitals are unvaccinated.

The vaccine doesn't prevent new cases. It isn't a super man cape. It lessens the effects, if you do get infected.

PKop5• 5 years ago

It's amazing to see people still buying into the idea that the vaccine or lock-downs will stop Covid from spreading. It's an endemic coronovirus, it will be around forever. People that want the vaccine (that doesn't prevent covid infection) can get it. Why destroy civilization to achieve less than nothing?

If it supposedly lessens effects if you get infected, why is there such controversy of worrying about those that don't want it?

The people filling the hospitals, which has consistently been overstated in magnitude, are obese/overweight and with other co-morbidities. For vast majority of Covid cases the symptoms are nothing to worry about. The risk of dying from under 50 is like 0.1% or better if not overweight.

This is an extreme modern aversion to any risk that would desire society grind itself to a halt forever and fight pointless mandate battles towards inevitable political chaos instead of just moving on with life.

_Microft• 5 years ago

The efficacy numbers you might be remembering could have been for the wild type, not the more infectious delta variant. A higher infectiousness also requires a far higher fraction of the population to be vaccinated to reduce spread (rule of thumb is that a fraction of 1 - 1/R_0 would be needed for a given value of R_0 iirc).

You also have to keep in mind that the incidences for vaccinated and unvaccinated are vastly different. Several German federal states record these values and the incidence among the unvaccinated is usually ~10x as high as for the vaccinated, so a small fraction of the population can be responsible for a good deal of the infections. I shall provide a link for the latter in a moment.

Example for Saxony, one of the more affected federal states at the moment. Ratio of incidences for unvaccinated:vaccinated is ~19:1, see:

https://www.coronavirus.sachsen.de/infektionsfaelle-in-sachs...

Example for Bavaria, also heavily affected. Ratio of incidences for unvaccinated:vaccinated is ~9.7:1. Source:

https://www.lgl.bayern.de/gesundheit/infektionsschutz/infekt...

Baden-Württemberg, taken from an article as I couldn't find the original source. Ratio of incidences unvaccinated:vaccinated is ~18.4:1 there:

https://www.swp.de/panorama/intensivstation-geimpfte-corona-...

Keep in mind that you would need to weigh that according to the vaccination levels if you want to calculate somethign with them but you should find the current levels on the same pages, I think.

twofornone5• 5 years ago

Is germany also using a lower threshold for PCR tests for vaccinated vs unvaccinated, as was the official recommendation by the CDC last year? Because they would significantly skew the numbers.

bellyfullofbac8• 5 years ago

You're confusing Austria and Australia, but hey, it's par for the course for the dumpster fire level of comments currently on this thread...

I'm going to trust the statistics that the vaccines work, and aren't deadly. The numbers seem to speak for themselves, thousands of samples and you can see any region with higher vaccination rates have lower infection and death rates (well, I guess until the efficacy wears down and boosters are needed...). On the topic of long term effects, I'm going to trust this scientist (of course at the end of the day, that's what it ends with isn't it, what statements do each of us trust):

https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-...

Unlike many medications, which are taken daily, vaccines are generally one-and-done. "Medicines you take every day can cause side effects" that reveal themselves over time, including long-term problems as levels of the drug build up in the body over months and years, Goepfert said. But "vaccines are just designed to deliver a payload and then are quickly eliminated by the body," he said. "This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. You wouldn't expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine."

twofornone5• 5 years ago

The numbers seem to speak for themselves, thousands of samples and you can see any region with higher vaccination rates have lower infection and death rates (well, I guess until the efficacy wears down and boosters are needed...)

This is inconsistent with record case numbers in highly vaccinated countries across the globe.

On the topic of long term effects, I'm going to trust this scientist (of course at the end of the day, that's what it ends with isn't it, what statements do each of us trust):

Publishing literature critical of vaccines is social and career suicide. The science is effectively poisoned, one sided because of social shaming. But Pfizer et al. aren't complaining given that they are raking in the cash explicitly free of liability. Not like that's a huge conflict of interest or anything, we should continue to trust their safety and efficacy data unquestionably. Surely big pharma has a spotless ethical and safety record.

threatofrain• 5 years ago

IMO, in the modern world, either the professional institutions of your society are trustworthy or people are screwed. Individual investigation into the sciences cannot be the last refuge of a nation under stress.

the-dude• 5 years ago

NL is at 84% and a bit for 12 yrs and older. We have record numbers of infections and restrictions are tightening.

zamadatix• 5 years ago

Please get vaccinated, if not for your sake for others needing to use emergency services. I waited 4 hours in a good deal of pain in an ER waiting room to be stationed to an overflow bed in the hall because of unvaccinated covid cases filling up the rooms. Being next to the nurses' station I got to hear multiple ambulances and helicopters be redirected to farther away hospitals due to lack of room while doctors and nurses constantly rushed between rooms with confused oxygen deprived patients trying to get out of their beds and take their oxygen masks off while they waited for spots in the ICU to open up.

Talking to the nurses the vast majority of hospitalized cases are unvaccinated and looking it up 40% of the state is unvaccinated but they represented 98% of the covid hospitalizations that were filling up over 1/3 of the beds that night. Exactly 0 beds across the entire state were taken due to being vaccinated.

Thankfully 4 hours of pain is something that is easy to get over and I was able to get treated before it caused life threatening problems, some of the people that were redirected won't be able to say the same.

wezzo• 5 years ago

How easy is it to fake Austrian vaccination cards? The ones my friends have (in Dallas, TX) are indistinguishable.

4ad3• 5 years ago

We use the EU-wide QR system. I don't know how easy is to get a fake certificate that would pass scrutiny, but here in Austria nobody seems to really check them. If you have something with a QR code on it, they let you pass.

bellyfullofbac8• 5 years ago

Yeah it uses cryptographic signing, but fails at the human level when the checker doesn't use the app to check it and doesn't check the holder's ID.

But there were reports that some Germans were selling the certificates on the "dark web" (i.e. you have to know the WhatsApp number of the seller), and are working with rogue pharmacy employees to issue valid certificates...

ratww2• 5 years ago

In stores and restaurants they are rarely checked, but in the cinema and in concerts I had to bring a document.

myaccoun90• 5 years ago

It's a digitally signed QR code with your name on it. You can't fake it. Some just reuse some other QR code and hope nobody cross-checks the name with some other ID.

akoncius• 5 years ago

here in Lithuania we already have some cases when people were caught using fake/other people's QR code and got punished for it.

another case was that doctors were bribed to sign a document that person was vaccinated even if that person has not visited vaccination center. so yeah, there are attempts, but at the same time, law enforcement works its job sometimes.

elorant3• 5 years ago

In Greece we had cases of fake certificates which were issued by crooked doctors who had access in the system. So I guess the same must apply all over Europe.

PeterisP4• 5 years ago

I read some assertions that in Greece there were some doctors who took like 400 euros bribe to make a fake injection, but injected the actual vaccine anyway so that the reality matched the paperwork - from a local perspective, is that true or if so, was it widespread?

PeterisP4• 5 years ago

Essentially you need to get issued a fake vaccination record by the actual medical system.

My local news had some people admitted to hospital with Covid and despite having the certificate, not having been actually vaccinated (which can be seen in blood tests some time afterwards) which has resulted in identifying some medical personnel who had been issued fake certificates of vaccination without actually vaccinating people; since every certificate "knows" when and where exactly you got the vaccine, which exact batch/vial of vaccine was used, and the institutions' medical records will show who (supposedly) made the injection.

The prosecution for the document forgery is still ongoing, but since some of the affected patients died from severe covid, that's essentially wrongful death through intentional medical malpractice, so the involved doctors/nurses will not only lose their licenses to practice but are quite likely to see jail time, and since a nontrivial ratio of people do get ill as Covid is still spreading, if someone fake-vaccinates a lot of people, they are likely to be identified.

walterbell6• 5 years ago

How many Austrians have already recovered from Covid infection and thus have long-lasting nasal/mucosal sterilizing immunity that stops both infection and transmission, unlike vaccines which reduce severity of symptoms and risk of death?

CDC estimates 146 million Americans have already been infected, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

glogla4• 5 years ago

Those do count as vaccinated, as far as I know.

walterbell6• 5 years ago

In the EU with proof of recovery, but sadly not (yet?) in the US.

Fronzie• 5 years ago

With the side-effect that if one is vaccinated with the Janssen vacin, one cannot enter Austria. But also, in the Netherlands, booster shots for those people are not available. So quite a few people are now prohibited from entering Austria just because to get assigned to have the Janssen vacin instead of e.g. Biontech/Pfizer.

66fm472tjy7• 5 years ago

It is my understanding that a single dose of the Janssen vaccine is still recognized until 2021-01-02 [0]. After that, you need to have an additional dose of any EMA-approved vaccine.

I assume you would be able to get a booster off-label in the Netherlands.

[0] https://gruenerpass.gv.at/geimpft/ "03. Jänner 2022 ist das Impfzertifikat einer einmaligen Janssen Impfung nicht mehr gültig."

leokennis• 5 years ago

Corona vaccination in the Netherlands has been pretty strictly “invite only”. I.e. once your age group had its turn, you got an invite to make an appointment to get the injection.

Currently no one in NL has gotten any booster yet. They hope to start 60+ somewhere beginning of December.

So as an example, come 03-01-2022, if you’re 30 and you have a Janssen shot and you want to go to Austria you’re out of luck. It’ll be months before you’re going to get the booster and you cannot “get it off label”.

bookofjoe• 5 years ago

"In the fall of 1988, the Los Angeles Times published one of the first feature stories in the U.S. media about the Cuban HIV sanatorium system. The article quoted a New York City doctor that had visited Havana, who called the institutions 'pleasant but frightening,' and that their use as a public health response to HIV could 'only be termed totalitarian.'"

'From 1986 until 1994, Cuba quarantined people living with HIV in medical facilities called sanatorios, or sanatoriums.'

https://nacla.org/news/2017/11/29/cuba%E2%80%99s-hiv-sanator...

ifyoubuildit• 5 years ago

All of the headlines I've seen on this are misleading. It's not actually a lockdown for unvaccinated people, it's a lockdown for unvaccinated and never infected people (see https://www.austria.info/en/service-and-facts/coronavirus-in...).

I think this would surprise a lot of Americans at least, since their government pretends that prior infections don't matter.

That said, it does send a chill up my spine to read about a country locking down a specific subset of their population.

Austria to declare nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people

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