COVID Vaccine For Mariners

Professional Mariner Forum
#144

I suppose it depends on what you’re trying to preserve. In prior generations the idea of bankrupting your children to extend your own elderly life a few more years would have been viewed as cowardice. I guess it’s different now, but looking at my infant son I can’t see why.

Early in the pandemic I suggested that elderly seafarers retire and let younger officers take the reigns, rather than forcing companies to spend millions to protect them. This was met with shrieking indignation here as those elderly seafarers saw their own irrelevancy approaching faster than they expected. But that irrelevancy will come soon enough anyways. Now it will just come with trillions of debt as a legacy.

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#145

There are no such things as old people.
There are only frequent voters. :smiley:

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#146

You could honestly apply this statement to the entire maritime industry in general. Shriveled old men far past their prime dominate huge sections of the maritime industry, hell the captain on my last ship was so fat he couldn’t even climb the stars to the bridge and had to use an elevator just to get down to the galley.

Logically it would have been far smarter when international trade took a nose-dive at the start of the pandemic to downsize the maritime industry so that when the re-opening began you could fill the vacated positions with fresh, young mariners, far more suited to the rigors of sea life. But instead we waste millions and hundreds of man hours compensating for the declining health of mariner population.

Not that anything can really be done about it since those same old men occupy nearly 90% of all the authority positions in the industry. Case in point, on that same ship I was on, only around a quarter of the entire crew were old enough to be considered in the danger bracket for COVID. None of them should have even been on that ship in the first place during the pandemic. But they just don’t retire.

Tbh this is kinda like a microcosm for our entire society.

#147

The disease affects more than sailors. And it affects more than the USA.

Rorschach19 math:
Amount spent cope with the disease in the USA: $2,000,000,000 (Two trillion dollars–a wild guess)
Estimated number of U.S. deaths if no precautions had been taken : 5,900,000 ( a very reliable estimate).
Cost per victim to avoid those deaths: $338.98.

The Rorschach Test: is it worth it?

The U.S. population 65 or older is about 54 million. About 20% of those work, according to AARP. So, about 10 million. If you take 10 million people out of the work force they will need still need shelter and food. That means taxpayer provided benefits.

Otherwise you will need to convince 10 million frequent voters to spend their life savings to sequester themselves. The trouble is, most don’t have life savings, which is why they are working. You could try to convince those people to starve themselves to death and lose their mortgages, for the good of everyone else. But that 's a tough sell. Right up there with butt-flavored beer–you’re never going to sell it. Which brings you back to taxpayer provided benefits.

Take $2 trillion dollars and divide it between 10 million people. That comes to $200 per old person–oops, I meant frequent voter. How do you feed/house those 10 million people who have stopped working, in order to sequester themselves, on $200? Not $200 a day, or month. Just $200. For a whole year. Change the numbers by a magnitude of 10 and you still come up with only $2000.

So you spend $338.98 a head to save maybe 5.3 million frequent voters. Or you let maybe 5 million frequent voters starve to death. Which do you think American society is going to vote to do?

Trick question: they already voted.

#148

There’s been more than two trillion just authorized in government spending, without even beginning to account for private business costs and losses and the associated drop in tax revenue.

I applaud you admitting that Donald Trump saved 5 million American lives through his excellent handling of the pandemic. Perhaps you should write him a letter to thank him. He lives in Florida now.

ETA: After giving you some time to correct what I had hoped was a typo, two trillion divided among ten million is $200,000. This is why we bemoan the gray tyranny of the old.

#149

Covid affects people of all ages. Even young people who do not get sick enough to require hospitalization often have long term consequences.

New variants are affecting younger people. Allowing Covid to continue to circulate produces more variants.

Covid may be more or less under control in the US in another couple of years, or it’s new variants many not be under control at all.

In the Third World, Covid will not be under control for at least 10 years, if then. Look forward to many years of international travel restrictions.

Look at the death toll in India and Brazil. Look at the wide age range being affected. Will the next wave of variants be worse? Who knows.

The youngest mariner on my boat is 52. Several are over 60. Why? Because younger “Mariners” today do not want to live the Mariner lifestyle. Most young “Mariners” are not mariners at all, they are just opportunists trying to make a quick buck until they can afford to pursue their dreams onshore.

In a time of scarce US deep sea jobs (it’s a dying sector ), it’s interesting to hear the desperate young punks whining and wishing that all the older mariners would die of Covid so the punks can have their jobs. Stop and listen to yourself for a minute.

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#150

The data does not support your claims. Random anecdotes of young people being affected by Covid-19 are not data. They’re stories.

I don’t need you to die of Covid to take your job. I’m smarter, faster, more highly skilled and in better health. I’ll get your job anyways. This is the way of the world. Always has been. Someday soon it will be my turn. I just hope I retain the balls not to whine about it.

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#151

On the union side deep sea I see senior officers in their 30s and 40s all day long and a board full of opportunities for advancement, most people seem to be at pretty career-appropriate ages.

#152

That Trump has moved from New York to Florida probably improves the average IQ of both States. If you are a resident of Florida, then you are probably better, faster and more talented but it could be you’re starting from a very low bar.
I spent many years at sea waiting for the junior officer who knew everything, perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.

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#153

Which generation was it that viewed letting the elderly die to save a buck as heroic?

#154

There is tons of data. Just do a little reading. Perhaps Bloomberg, Nature, etc.

Veterans who got Covid are 39% more likely to develop diabetes 6 months afterwards, according to a VA study.

There is a lot we don’t know about Covid, but one thing is certain: it’s much more serious than most people think it is.

The Government cannot print and giveaway money forever. Unless we take Covid seriously, and do not tolerate obstruction of effective measures by anti vaxers, Covid is eventually going to collapse the economy.

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#155

For everyone’s sake, just get vaccinated. It is not that hard. We were vaccinated for polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases as children. Why adults now refuse to get vaccinated is beyond my comprehension.

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#156

When EU set rules for BMI of seafarers the Danish Shipowners Association complained that they would not be able to find Danish crews for their ships

#157

If we really want to save lives and improve the overall intelligence level of the population, it is easy - make a “shot card” and Covid vaccination a legal requirement for access to any facility that receives any amount of federal funding. This means schools, airports, government buildings or offices, seaports, and military bases or recruiting offices. Make it mandatory for all military personnel and civilian federal employees.

You can’t fix stupid but you can prevent stupid from destroying society.

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#158

Look, the COVID Vaccines are still in trial phase that were approved for emergency use, the American with Disabilities Act does allow for medical exemptions to a vaccine mandate, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act gives workers the right to seek an exception based on religious beliefs. The Emergency Use Authorization goes back to the Project Bioshield Act of 2004, passed largely in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Congress recognized that the FDA might need to approve drugs quickly in the event of a biological or nuclear terror event. The statute does say conditions can be placed on a drug granted an EUA, including informing the recipient of the drug’s status and advising them that the choice is theirs. However, private employers could still go around this, by stating the vaccine is a condition of future employment, especially in at will states.

#159

Considering that the FDA has given approval to a huge number of drugs that have side effects far worse than the problem they are supposed to cure - just read the fine print that flashes beneath the horde of drug commercials that clog television - grant full approval and impose the conditions I listed.

You can’t cure stupid but you can prevent it from contaminating society. Remove the religious beliefs thing, if some god wants its cult members to survive that god will prevent harm from the vaccine. Their mythology doesn’t give them the right to spread a pandemic disease.

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#160

“I don’t need you to die of Covid to take your job. I’m smarter, faster, more highly skilled and in better health. I’ll get your job anyways.”

With that ego I’m sure you’ll be running a ship single-handedly very soon.

Never understand people that spout this kind of garbage. You’re stating facts, not opinions, about your perceived prowess, but how are you actually measuring any of it? Or are you just making that shit up? To some HR people & people in supervisory roles blanket statements like this are immediate admissions that the subject is actually none of the things they’ve just stated.

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#161

They probably stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

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#162

Smarter, faster, more highly skilled maybe if the bar is not too high. More intelligent? Doubtful. Living long gives one certain advantages in experience and education.

#163

The statement was about the young inevitably overtaking the old, not about me or him personally. You’re showing some insecurity by taking it that way.