Significantly decreasing your chance of catching an awful, potentially fatal, disease is not a carrot?

My age group is more likely to die die from ass clots from all the sitting inside I'm doing.

If I'm allowed to answer honestly and not be accused of "trolling", I don't believe the lethality of Covid-19 is high enough to make vaccination itself a carrot on a societal scale, to solve the question this article outlines.

Many of us are not onboard with that narrative.

It's not a narrative, it is a fact.

Sure but let's be honest here. For <50 year olds the odds of getting a serious infection 0.06% to 0.4% (and presumably 1/10th of that if you don't smoke, have decent weight, not currently ill with something else, ...), which has to be multiplied with the infection rate, at best 10%.

So your odds of a negative effect from COVID without vaccine is between 0.04% and 0.006%, and may be much less.

So reasonably you should take this as worth ... roughly a tenth of a car maintenance, in time and cost.

For me, the big risk is transmitting it to someone I care about.

In Wuhan they tested about 10 Million people and concluded "There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases".

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

If COVID-19 becomes an annual event like the flu then someday you will be in the 50+ group and suddenly this will matter very much to you. Meanwhile you're in the spreader group infecting those who are 50+ such as your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and potentially killing them.

A couple of points:

> your odds of a negative effect from COVID without vaccine is between 0.04% and 0.006%

And with the vaccine, they are 0%. Or sufficiently close enough, that they weren't registered in the large scale studies of various vaccine makers.

> roughly a tenth of a car maintenance, in time and cost

And I get the jab for free with paid leave, so for free in time and cost.

Why? Because the costs for society are evidently high. Most people have friends or relatives, which are in high risk groups (e.g. parents, grand-parents), and they rather do not want to take the risk of being responsible for their premature and rather gruesome death.

> And with the vaccine, they are 0%. Or sufficiently close enough, that they weren't registered in the large scale studies of various vaccine makers.

No they drop by 60%-80% or so, they don't drop to zero. It depends on the specific vaccin and which "refresh" regimen you choose, and of course on your age (the very young and very old can get as many vaccins as they want, it won't work, and of course immunodeficient patients won't work either)

Or to put it differently: if you have to choose between stopping smoking or getting vaccinated. Stopping smoking is by far the better choice (of course both is still better).

Moderna: 0 severe cases in the vaccinated group, 11 in the placebo group: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/peer-reviewed-...

Pfizer/BioNTech: 1 severe case in the vaccinated vs 9 placebo group (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33301246/)

Oxford: 10 hospitalisations all in the control group (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...)

> I think we could increase vaccination compliance exponentially if getting vaccinated meant no longer having to wear a mask, social distance

The issue here is that the need for wearing a mask is not affected by whether you've been vaccinated. The mask is not mainly about protecting you, it's about protecting others from you.

Unless a vaccine also stops transmission entirely (and none of them do though it looks like they will to some extent) you remain a danger to others even if you yourself have been vaccinated.

This in fact is my main issue with people refusing a vaccine. If it was just their own health, and there were no other implications, then fine. It isn't though. If large numbers are unvaccinated, then the vaccinated population still can't return to some semblance of normality without risking killing them.

(BTW I'm not advocating enforced vaccination, I just hate the effect a large unvaccinated population has on the vaccinated population. And for context/clarity/disclosure, I'll be taking it when offered.)

Personally I think not dying of a deadly disease is a pretty good carrot, as is the fact that we get to eventually stop wearing masks, but I accept those are sort of abstract rewards.

Unfortunately the what you are suggesting just isn't feasible. Mask wearing is also still necessary because we don't know if vaccinated people are still carriers. It is entirely possible the R number of a vaccinated person not wearing as mask is higher than the R number of an unvaccinated person wearing a mask.

Honestly, I think we should just pay people to take it.

There are lots of limitations t giving it the vaccine. The problem is a logistical one, not a carrot one.

Where's the stick? How would the US enforce the "get vaccinated or wear a mask" rule? I can't think of any way to do this that isn't massively invasive, and I don't see this as being politically viable in most democratic countries.

Weird. Countries like South Korea and Israel don't need a stick. Their citizens happily volunteer to receive a shot.

When the username screams satire, but the namesake of the username screams eugenicist...

Pay people $250 to receive the first dose and another $250 for the second dose. In cash, on site, immediately after you get your shot. Individuals aged 16 and over only. No citizenship test: give the money to undocumented immigrants too, as long as they receive the vaccine. Pay for it with deficit spending.

Too low. $1000 per shot. And yes cash, no prepaid debit card.

That will just result in people who are poor trying to fake Identification in order to get vaccinated 3rd, 4th time. Particularly undocumented immigrants, whom aren't in any databases. The side effects of taking several doses is not known, but is probably not super good for you.

Ah, once again "the poors" are the bad actors who ruin it for everyone, eh?

It's wise to look at second order effects - it's one of the primary ways you can sperate good policy from virtue signaling.

Carrots for human guinea pigs is a bit misanthropic, no?