Thanks for your voice of reason Claudia! Science does nothing but talk unless we can sit back and do some proper analysis of the reality. During June 2020 I had an incredibly BAD fall down a flight of stairs, head first and over a stool. I am still recovering and had to put my PhD studies on hold and take time off from teaching at the university. At that time everyone was being told to stay away from hospitals. it took MONTHS for me to get any kind of help... and I have connections where I live and enough money to pay. Others reported similar things- important medical procedures were delayed or even cancelled. People were dying who needed care - not related to covid. Currently I am back to teaching, but needed a TA accommodation to help with grading. This was a special request because the way universities cut our TA and RA hours now even though they rake in HUGE profits. It also a sad fate for universities - where will our future academics get their experience? This last shut down has left me nearly crippled. What do I do now? And others that are being set aside out of fear that is not making sense anymore. The initial variant may have been cause enough for concern.... not my area of expertise. Common sense needs to be the current factor in our current situation. I am sure I have cost the system MUCH more now to catch my health up, then it would have if I had been treated initially. Due to my current health status, I may not be able to reach my potential and that is a shame. I am an advocate for justice and now I can barely sit, let alone march. Joli Scheidler, BA, BEd, MA, PhD Candidate York University - Health Policy & Equity Call or Text: 905-493-2863 Faster email response: [log in to unmask] ________________________________ From: Social Determinants of Health <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Claudia Chaufan <[log in to unmask]> Sent: January 29, 2022 3:53 PM To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: [SDOH] Vaccines don't work To the point of the Guardian, it is people, not rates, that occupy beds at hospitals. Even if only one person in the UK or in Canada remained unvaccinated and ended up hospitalized or dead (100% rate of hospitalization/death for the unvaxxinated), could you really say that that one person is ‘clogging the hospitals”? Health services experts know well that about 20% of the population consumes about 80% of health services. This is a feature of populations – in any population there will always be people who are older, have ‘bad’ behaviours so end up sicker (or are seen as having them depending on the politics of the times), or are sicker for whatever reason, and so on. But I would think that most people in this forum do not go around moralizing about health behaviours, whether it is failing to eat healthfully, exercising, and losing weight, or to stop smoking, drinking, etc., however good these behaviours may be to increase several times your chances of not dying – to classify your patients between deserving and undeserving and refuse them care. In bioethics this issue has been settled a long time ago with the case of smokers. More to the point, the ‘unvaxxed’ clogging hospitals? Not in Canada or the UK. The attached pictures from Public Health Ontario clearly show that most ICU beds are not-covid (57% vs. 21%) and that 27% of ICU beds are empty. And since Omicron, both case counts and rates have gone through the roof, apparently much more so among the double (or triple) vaxxed. There are a few interesting hypotheses out there that allude to how our complex immune system works. In the UK (p. 43, 44 and 45 in the latest report), most cases, hospitalizations and deaths are ocuring among vaccinated patients (some even triple vaxxed). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports Finally, if both vaxxed and unvaxxed have roughly equal viral loads and can transmit the virus equally (Secondary Attack Rates among vaccinated 25%, unvaxxinated 23%, so lower capacity to trasmit, the Lancet Infectious Diseases<https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext>), in other way, you cannot separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ with vaccination, what is the public health rationale for mandates? Let me set aside for now the issue of NNT and NNV (Numbers Needed to Treat and Numbers Needed to Vaccinate), basic but very important epidemiological concepts when it comes to assessing the benefits and harms of any medical intervention, whether covid vaccines or Lipitor for your blood cholesterol (tip: the estimated NNV for covid vaccines is over 1,000, not promising to say the least). I have information to share if anybody is interested but I suspect there are epidemiologists in this forum much more apt than me to discuss this topic. Claudia Chaufan, MD, PhD Associate Professor, Health Policy & Global Health Special Advisor to the Dean of Health in Curriculum Internationalization School of Health Policy and Management<https://www.yorku.ca/health/shpm/> Graduate Program in Health<https://health.gradstudies.yorku.ca/> Global Health<https://www.yorku.ca/health/globalhealth/> Development Studies<https://dvst.gradstudies.yorku.ca/> Social and Political Thought<https://spth.gradstudies.yorku.ca/> York University, Canada https://shpm.info.yorku.ca/claudia-chaufan-new-faculty-profile/<https://health.yorku.ca/health-profiles/index.php?dept=&mid=1386877> "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ¯ Richard P. Feynman ________________________________ From: Social Determinants of Health <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Dennis Raphael <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2022 3:38 PM To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Vaccines don't work https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html And of course the very sick anti-vaxxers are killing others by clogging up hospitals and preventing needed care. [cid:image001.png@01D8145D.16A00710] Get a free copy of Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts, 2nd edition at http://thecanadianfacts.org<http://thecanadianfacts.org/> Join 1200+ health leaders on the SDOH Listserv at https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html Dennis Raphael, PhD Professor of Health Policy and Management York University 4700 Keele Street Strong College, Room 334 Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 416-736-2100, ext. 22054 email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Website: http://health.info.yorku.ca/health-profiles/index.php?mid=162284 Of interest: The Politics of Health in the Canadian Welfare State https://www.canadianscholars.ca/books/the-politics-of-health-in-the-canadian-welfare-state Poverty in Canada, 3rd edition, Forewords by Cathy Crowe, Rob Ranier and Jack Layton https://www.canadianscholars.ca/books/poverty-in-canada-d3408482-0caa-489a-8a76-7faf7587d00a Staying Alive: Critical Perspectives on Health, Illness, and Health Care, 3rd edition Foreword by Gary Teeple https://www.canadianscholars.ca/books/staying-alive Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, 3rd edition Forewords by Michael Butler and Maude Barlow, Carolyn Bennett and Roy Romanow http://tinyurl.com/hm5l4hn Immigration, Public Policy, and Health: Newcomer Experiences in Developed Nations http://www.cspi.org/books/immigration-public-policy-and-health About Canada: Health and Illness, 2nd edition https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/about-canada-health-and-illness Tackling Health Inequalities: Lessons from International Experiences Foreword by Alex Scott-Samuel http://www.cspi.org/books/tackling_health_inequalities Health Promotion and Quality of Life in Canada: Essential Readings http://tinyurl.com/3C8zteu See a presentation! The Political Economy of Health Inequalities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NCTYqAub8g Also, presentation at the University of Toronto on how Canada stacks up again other nations in providing citizens with economic and social security. http://vimeo.com/33346501 See what Jack Layton had to say about my books! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/10/cv-election-ndp-layton-platform.html at 27:20 To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1 To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1 To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1