Some effects may take a long time to develop.

Not related but a very slow biological process (prions): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27982991

So, clearly you're just making a nitpicky point about whether we can say there are "no side effects" and ignoring context. But the context here is a vaccine against a very dangerous disease, and the need to make a risk analysis decision as to whether to use it.

Broadly: you seem to be implying that you think a ~0.5% fatality rate just "takes a long time to develop". Even if you posit 100% infections in the US (laughably wrong given the trajectory of outbreak, but whatever), you have to accept an IFR almost 0.2%.

Given the ~170M Americans already vaccinated, any side effect worth discussing would need to be at least as bad as killing 334000 of them. And needless no vaccine in history, maybe no widely prescribed drug of any kind, has turned up a long tail side effect analysis like that. Remember when everyone lost their shit about Vioxx? Best estimates are that 38k people died; an order of magnitude lower.

> against a very dangerous disease

Ebola or smallpox are very dangerous disease. COVID has much lower negative impact on lives/health, it is more like flu or risk of stroke, very dangerous only for specific subpopulations, mostly old / unhealthy people with preexisting conditions.

Ebola spreads poorly and never achieved anything larger than a regional outbreak (but yes, it's very dangerous). Smallpox is extinct.

Covid is a pandemic, literally killing millions of people. You don't think that's relevant to a discussion about vaccination policy?

BTW: that "smallpox" idea you threw out? Give you two guesses as to how it was eradicated.

You said it is very dangerous, but I say it is not in that category. It is very dangerous to specific subpopulations, that's it.

It is "very dangerous" in that it's killing millions of people and will probably kill millions more if we don't get people to take their vaccines. Better?

Again, imagine if people successfully deployed your logic against the smallpox vaccine. We'd still be getting sick with smallpox.

Yes that's slightly better. However millions may still die even with vaccinations, because most of the world does not have access to them and they don't have adequate health care. Also, with time as mutations occur, vaccines will get less efficient.

You got confused with the smallpox. I mentioned smallpox as an example of what COVID isn't. Not every disease warrants mass vaccination, and this depends also on efficacy of the vaccine.

COVID may warrant it for specific subpopulations. But we don't have good enough vaccines yet to eradicate COVID. "Getting rid of COVID via vaccines", "vaccines is the only way" is just fantasy/propaganda tactic to increase vaccinations.

“Unhealthy people” is a very large group. For example, obesity is considered an unhealthy state. 42.5% of the US population is obese.

If obesity is a contributing problem, I wonder if there could be a non-vaccine solution to obesity? Hmm, maybe it has something to do with the quantity and type of calories consumed.

People are free to eat themselves into metabolic destruction just as people are free to partake or not partake in the emergency use authorization vaccine experiments.

People are free to partake or not partake… no one is forcing people to get vaccinated, there is always an alternative. A restaurant is requiring patrons to be vaccinated? Don’t go there if you are not. Your job is requiring prove of vaccination? Quit the job.

Yes technically you are correct, but COVID does not care about technical definition of obesity. Obese is a very general term, borderline obese/overweight person with otherwise healthy body has much better chances than someone with morbid obesity or diabetes or heart/vascular condition.

Sure, I agree that obesity is not a great indicator. I just used it to illustrate that an unhealthy population can be very large. Another example: 6.5% of Americans are morbidly obese, which I would guess can have an effect on the severity of Covid symptoms. That’s already 20 million people. And that’s just one factor. How many people have heart problems, lung problems, etc?

Yes, it's still a big part of the population. I think getting vaccinated makes a lot of sense in that group, but of course even there, it has to be informed personal decision.

The long lasting side effects of Covid are just as if not more underresearched than the vaccines.

They are not underresearched, they are unknown because the long term has to pass first and then it can be researched.

Smoking cigarettes is harmless.... nobody gets sick after smoking for a year

thalidomide is harmless... "On October 1, 1957, the company launched thalidomide and began marketing it under the trade name Contergan. It was proclaimed a "wonder drug" for insomnia, coughs, colds and headaches... In late 1959, it was noticed that peripheral neuritis developed in patients who took the drug over a period of time, and it was only after this point that thalidomide ceased to be provided over the counter. ...Despite the side effects, thalidomide was sold in pharmacies in Canada until 1962." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide]

the industry doesn't turn on a dime due to adverse effects when there is money to be made

You can always make a "you never know, something completely unforeseen may happe", and you will be right.

Of course, people tend to only make those arguments for things they don't really want to be done.

Not really. This has been the argument against pesticides and GMO foods for years, and it’s completely valid in hindsight.

GMO is a good example why such concerns are not always right. (See also: cell phone radiation.)

Are pesticides and GMO foods - two things which are reapplied on a frequent basis, relatively speaking - actually comparable to an instance in time where someone received one or two shots once? I think the most famous/deadly instances of drugs having side effects which discovered after mass deployment have generally been for medicines one ingests continuously, no?

I, as an untrained and uneducated individual, find it almost impossible to imagine a drug / technology / mechanism which could be applied "once" (i.e. only one time, even if over a few doses spaced out in time) that would not present any population effects after 1y / 1billion people that would then proceed to be even within one order of magnitude as deadly as COVID. Hell, two or three even...

1) Prions: kuru has asymptomatic incubation period 10-13 years; 2) various carcinogens, it takes time for the cancer to develop.

Prions are an obvious exception, but I don't think I agree with carcinogens. Perhaps I'm unaware. Can you point to any carcinogen which a single exposure to would result in a >0.05% death rate in the exposed population?

I don't think people who really wanted pesticides and GMO foods made those arguments.

True but the same goes for covid itself. In fact we already know of long covid. Which we still don't know much about. We don't even know if it ever goes away. So there's a known long-term effect already.

The vaccines are a lot better understood than the virus. We don't know of any long-term issues so far.

It's still a much safer bet to get the vaccine IMO. And it will also help with the societal problem around the covid measures. We can't keep going on lockdowns for years to come. It will destroy the economy which has its own associated health risks.

These vaccines are not going to solve societal problems; they do not prevent spreading, and efficiency decreases as the virus mutates. COVID measures will stop when critical body of people finally realizes they are inefficient/too costly and not necessary.

Most vaccine side effects do take a long time to develop, and as a result are concluded to be plain ol’ “bad luck” health problems

Interesting study from Carnegie Mellon and Pitt found that the most vaccine "hesitant" group are people with PhDs and they are the only group that has actually increased in hesitancy to get the shot over the last few months

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/cov...

As others are pointing out, this is a wild misreading of a study that actually showed all education levels becoming less hesitant. PhD's quite obviously held constant modulo sampling error, and that's exactly how it's described in the paper:

The relevant chart is on page 27 of the paper here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v...

Also note that they call out the weird results with PhD's as an outlier without an explanation (other education metrics show less hesitancy with more education monotonically), and call for further research.

To wit: you're spinning like crazy here trying to make this data say something its authors expressly disclaim.

You're going to get downvoted into oblivion but as a PhD, who has also worked in manufacturing, I have a number of reasons to remain skeptical about the vaccines. I won't repeat them here because everyone has pretty much made up their mind one way or the other.

For what it's worth, I did end up getting vaccinated recently (J&J, not mRNA-based) after quite a few unpleasant conversations with my spouse that I was endangering our children on the presumption that unvaccinated people more easily spread the virus. This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar (among people tested). Consequently, I'm just staying home these days.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm

I'm sorry your family had to go through that. Your wife meant well, but I think overreacted and wasn't very rational. Young children are the most resilient group against COVID, even without vaccination. Most of them don't even have symptoms.

> This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar

I'm a little horrified that you cite your academic credentials and then misread that conclusion so badly. Viral load and infectiousness are equivalent between vaccinated and unvaccinated INFECTED PEOPLE in that study, not overall. The vaccinated are, obviously, much less likely to get sick in the first place.

Your wife was right and you were wrong, basically.

Yes much less likely sick, but that by itself does not mean much less likely getting infected. The recent data from U.S. and Israel show that vaccinated people get infected easily too.

That's just wrong. Why do people keep claiming this? Consensus immunity for Pfizer against delta is still in the 60-80% range, which while less than the 95% measured against earlier variants is vastly higher than the unvaccinated. (Though to be fair this is hard to measure against the confounding background that the vaccinated tend to be better at other mitigation strategies too.)

Even the Israel data you cite, which is an outlier, measured 39% effectiveness, which is STILL twice as good as being unvaccinated.

Those 80% and higher efficacies are against symptomatic COVID and hospitalization. Not against getting infected and getting infectious. This efficacy was high initially, but is reported to be decreasing, and currently at 40% for Pfizer [1]:

[1] https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-de...

That study is still an outlier. But I repeat, because you don't seem to understand the point: even if it's that low, and even if transmissibility is completely unaffected, it means that an unvaccinated person will spread TWICE AS MANY CASES as a vaccinated one. That's the difference between a pandemic and a contained endemic disease right there.

Get. Your. Vaccine.

40% efficacy for preventing spreading is quite poor. There are other strategies of similar or better efficacy for preventing spreading like limiting contact with people, using masks, vitamin D, being on ivermectin. If you were a marketing department of a pharma company selling vaccines for preventing spreading, you would not be very convincing.

my wife has a phd in a relevant field, and only just got her first dose last week. she still is not sure if it was a good idea or not.

I don’t believe you. Gonna check your comment history - guessing you take the contrarian position on every single covid-related topic.

Edit: yep, lol. To clarify,I don’t think your wife does not have a phd in some field related to pharmaceuticals, I think the two of you are hesitant because you are socially conservative and/or general covid contrarians.

Only part of the story

> Generally, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was higher among young (ages 18-24), non-Asian people, and less educated (≤ high school diploma) adults, and those with PhDs, with a history of a positive COVID-19 test, not worried about serious illness from COVID-19 and living in regions with greater support to Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Hah, guess who can't read properly...

No, their hesitancy didn't increase, every other group's decreased, making the hesitancy percentage among PhDs (since it remained mostly constant) to be the highest by May.

To put it in 5th grader terms, if Alan had $30, Beth had $20 and Charlie had $15 at the beginning of the year, and Alan"s and Beth's savings decreased to $13 and $5 but Charlie's only decreased to $14 by May, Charlie is now the richest of the group.

I’m not worried about the immediate side effects. I’m 25. I’m worried about the side effects that don’t show for 20+ years.

I’ve gotten COVID so I don’t feel like I need the vaccine. I have a REAL problem with mandatory vaccination for a virus I’ve already gotten and would gladly contract again if it means I get to retain my agency.

You already got COVID, so you're already stuck with whatever long-term side effects there are from COVID infection and probably have some immunity already, so I understand your desire to not take additional risk by getting the vaccine.

But for someone who has not yet had COVID, why would you suggest they should be uniquely concerned about hypothetical unknown long-term side effects from the vaccine, and not COVID itself?

I never suggested someone else should be uniquely concerned about the vaccine—be concerned about ALL the unknowns! Lol

That being said, my biggest problem is the proposed loss of agency. Let me be the master of my fate.

We can't be master of our fates, because if there is fate, it's determined. But we can decide to think and act as free persons nevertheless. We should ignore nonsensical / non-constitutional edicts and go on with our lives.

I wonder how much society has to tolerate that. You want to live in society? Well, sorry, that involves some loss of agency. You want to be the master? Then why is there an entitlement that the grocery store, etc, has to serve you?

I think you’re intentionally misinterpreting my statement.

Since we know the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from contracting or spreading the virus—it should not be mandated. Period. If this actually had to do with people’s safety, an argument COULD be made. But that’s not the case, so I think it’s preposterous that would should be forced to take a vaccine that’s solely for one’s “own good”.

As an aside, any group-think situation where people start being concerned about “my own safety” is not an experiment I’d like to be a part of.

The vaccination gives better protection against ending up in ICU, if we believe the literature. You want agency, do you also volunteer not to occupy an ICU bed (or even a hospital bed) in case you get Covid? Seems very selfish to demand the hospital service (at the end of the day, provided by others in society, e.g. others who went to medical school so we don't have to learn medicine/how to intubate ourselves) but refuse to contribute to protecting it (e.g. by making sure hospital beds are available for those who need it).

And how am I misinterpreting your comment?

These attempts at guilt-tripping of people with different opinions on society COVID strategy / personal health choices are disgusting and tiresome. You are not their doctor, and even doctor has to respect patients decision.

Vaccines are not the only possible way to behave responsibly, there are several strategies, let people find and follow their own. It's better even for the society, in case the vaccines turn out to not be the silver bullet the media and chinless spivs in governments told us (which it seems is getting more likely these days).

Isn't there a term when in an argument the other party pivots to "Your behavior is disgusting and tiresome!" instead of arguing the topic at hand?

We're just discussing "I want my agency!" vs "You still want to be a part of society right?" around here.

For someone who regards himself to have an independent streak, I'm interestingly agreeing quite a lot with the government full of "chinless spivs" about this. If they turn out to be wrong about the vaccine, well, there'll be hell to pay. Or maybe many of the vaccinated will think "I decided, I'll live with the consequences"?

Did you provide arguments for why "person being a part of society" means or implies they have to submit and receive the vaccine?

No. You claimed that not submitting to the vax agenda makes them a selfish person who refuses to contribute. Without any evidence.

You were talking down and guilt-tripping people who express concern, arguments or opinions in opposition to yours.

Being 25, excellent physical condition, having already gotten over COVID once with little more than a runny nose—absolutely. If you said all I had to do was agree in-writing, to not occupy an ICU bed in order to avoid having this vaccine forced upon me I’d do it in a heartbeat. But see that’s the kind of sensical thinking that our government can’t seem to comprehend, instead they’d rather just cut off people’s access to public transportation and restaurants.

I believe your comment about losing agency by wanting to be in society was a misinterpretation. My indication was clearly that agency == not taking the vaccine in this case. I realize that by participating in society I can’t run around with an AK-47 shooting whomever I please—while technically that IS a loss of agency that’s clear not the kind of agency I was talking about. I was talking about the benign agency to simply say “No” to the largest medical experiment in recent memory—literally modifying the way our DNA replicated as a vaccine delivery system.

There has always been inherent risk in the freedom to live as one chooses. But that I’ll happily assume that risk, and I’ll take full responsibility for the consequences of my choices.

But you're not worried about the side effects of COVID that will develop over 20+ years?

It's not like COVID is any safer or well-understood. This is a false dichotomy.

I never said I wasn’t worried about the side effects of getting COVID in 20 years.

I didn’t have a choice to get COVID, I DO have a choice to not get the vaccine.

Exactly, somehow this simple fact eludes many vaccinators on HN.

COVID doesn’t get to bypass all safety barriers in your body

It does, that's why it's making people sick and in many cases dead.

People are downvoting you because this reality is too scary for them to confront, so they’d rather plug their ears

Like any other vaccine, I weighed the risk vs benefit and took the odds and got vaccinated. I'm for vaccination. I'm not for forcing vaccines upon a population who are hesitant for their own reasons for something that so far, is a relatively mid-level virus. If this were the plague, I'd want more stringent enforcement, given the same vaccine odds.

That said, I hope Twitter et al don't knee jerk react-to this and block discussion just because it would counter their preferred narrative.

I remember quite a few SARS and swine-flu scares over the past few decades - the disease would be quite destructive but small in scale. We aren't at "bring out your dead" levels yet but we have been living primarily in lockdowns for the past year and a half. If this doesn't qualify as a plague we should take seriously and address I'm rather afraid what would actually reach that level for you.

if covid was truly frightening we wouldn't need government mandates forcing people to take it seriously

People aren't good at estimating danger that's indirect. I can provide examples.

> Like any other vaccine

or drugs in general. Just look at adverse effects of Ibuprofen. Common drug, but unlike vaccines, it is not used for whole population at once. So adverse effects even if more common are not that visible.

Yeah I know there are side effects for many people. For me the second time it felt a bit like I ran into a door handle at the spot where I got the jab. Like a minor bruise. That was all. But this is anecdotal of course. Some people will get it worse. They always said side effects would be possible for some people. There's also a reason we all have to wait 15 minutes before leaving. The possible allergy is another anticipated side-effect.

If these were serious and common however, really the hospitals would be so busy by now taking care of all of them. The number of people that got the vaccine here in europe in the space of the last few months is enormous. We started much later than the US but have caught up in a really short time. And with the exception of the UK most countries have used mostly mRNA types and very little AstraZeneca. As a result we had (and probably still have) higher numbers going through vaccination per month than the US.

Even the tiniest percentage of serious complications would have been flooding the hospitals which were already at high pressure due to covid.