please give '''my''' shot to a high risk person in jamaica or iran or brazil. i don't need it, they do.

> i don't need it

Yes. You do. Even if you're asymptomatic, the virus will still mutate with a small chance of becoming another variant, and if you're unvaccinated in such a case, that means you'll spread it to others.

By not being vaccinated, you run the risk of spreading a variant around that is a "breakthrough variant" - a mutation of the disease that is hardened against a particular vaccine brand.

Thus, you will be contributing to healthy people getting sick despite being properly vaccinated.

Thankfully, the most high risk people in Brazil have gotten two shots by now; we're moving towards giving a first shot to every adult, and starting second shots for everyone. The vaccination campaign was botched by negligence and corruption from the Bolsonaro government, but by now the doses are finally arriving.

We're also having the same discussions about third dose... Currently, the order is to give a third dose for the elderly (70+) and immunocompromised.

It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans idiots. Over 100 million Americans have already caught and recovered from Covid. I imagine many in that group don't see any value in getting the vaccine (rightfully so).

It's not only ignorant of the science, as you point out regarding prior immunity, but highly ignorant of history and social dynamics. Creating an underclass that is considered diseased and "dangerous to us" ends badly, to say the least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_stages_of_genocide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization

In addition, minorities have reason to distrust the medical establishment.[0] For all the noise made about "voter ID is racist", almost no one has said that "vaccine passports are racist". Do we really want to create another two tiered system where minorities are the outgroup again?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

Most of those people don't actually know they had COVID. They make up stories that "they've already had it". Remember that vaccinated still get COVID, those numbers include them.

What evidence do you have for your claim? An anecdote or two from your own life? How is that any more scientific than what you claim to be decrying?

In the U.S. at least, there is a mass testing regime that many must submit to for work, school, etc. Are you suggesting those who have tested positive in these situations are "making up stories"?

Overwhelmingly people did not have to test for COVID, and never did. They had a few "symptoms" and claimed they got COVID and it "was no big deal". When in reality they have no proof of it. Humans overwhelmingly make up stories so reinforce their opinions. And no, most work did not require testing, even government work. Even federal government work.

"Humans overwhelmingly make up stories so reinforce their opinions."

At least we can agree on that. You're doing it right now.

Funny that you put "a few symptoms" in scare quotes, given that loss of taste and smell is highly indicative of covid and not any other widely circulating illness.

Anecdotally, there are people who say it only based upon symptoms. I'd even argue that they are probably right, but its fair to say that they have any way of validating or proving that knowledge.

I agree that if someone is doing this, they do not have definitive proof.

The comment I was responding to claimed "most" people are making claims without proof. Despite the hundreds of millions (billions?) of covid tests that have been administered throughout the pandemic in the U.S.

There were a few stories that called into question the effectiveness of these tests ranging from PCR, antibody, antigen, etc.

Anecdote to support your statement: A close friend that tested positive for COVID last year works at a hospital. They saw no value in getting vaccinated since they had already been infected and recovered. They were given an ultimatum last month of "get vaccinated or find a new job".

Reason has left the building.

How it would have hurt to get a vaccine?

Well for one it could go to desperate people in 3rd world countries? If you already provably had covid letting your now useless shot go to the ones in need is arguably the moral choice?

The doses in the countries they're at now aren't likely to go to a different country, and are more likely to expire before they could be shipped elsewhere, so people in those countries may as well get them. For other places, the problem is manufacturing and distribution, and lifting patent restrictions would help too.

>How it would have hurt to get a vaccine?

Notice how easy it is to conveniently jettison the science + data and just demand that people "tow the line or else.."

It would be very useful to know what percent of the unvaccinated population are not getting vaccinated because they already had COVID. What are their demographics, compared to the larger demographics of the unvaccinated population? And is it worth spending any effort (or White House budget paying TikTok influencers) trying to convince them to get a vaccine for an illness they have already had?

Choosing to risk catching a disease with a 1-2% case fatality rate, while refusing an overwhelmingly safe and effective vaccine is the definition of idiocy.

If they've already had and recovered from Covid, as in the case of this 100 MM, their case fatality rate is nothing near that, and may well be lower than that for vaccinated-but-never-infected people.

Their choice is this, if they are otherwise healthy and young: With protection as good or better than the vaccinated, should I get a shot that might lower my already minuscule chance of dying or serious disease by a further tiny amount.

I could see rational people coming down on both sides of that.

Let us assume person x already got covid? The rationale for refusing the vaccine is either (a) they believe they do not need it or (b) they do so on ideological belief.

If it is (a), evidence shows that covid + vaccine is better than either alone and hence no reason to refuse the vaccine.

If it is (b), there is perfect justification for calling that stancy as an idiotic stance.

It is true that evidence suggests past infection + vaccine is best. But the evidence also shows that antibodies from past infection are superior to two shots of Pfizer which the majority of people were rolling with maskless just fine.

So regarding option a, it’s moreso the case that there’s no legitimate reason TO bother with the vaccine if you have those antibodies already. A marginal improvement at best over what is already better than two shots of Pfizer, is not worth the long-term unknowns to me.

Source:

https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

There is also new evidence that it may be safer for boys to just get covid rather than vaccination.

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...

Knowing this, will you still say there’s no reason to refuse it? Why would you elevate yourself into a position where you believe yourself to be an arbiter of this? The evidence is clear that the antibodies tens of millions already have from past infection are excellent. So stop coming up with false dilemmas.

IFR is a better metric than CFR:

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

The overall IFR is misleading, given how age-stratified the risk is:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0

I absolutely adore when publicly available data sourced from government agencies gets downvoted.

Since March of 2020 any kind of statement suggesting covid isn’t as bad as some make it out to be is met with fierce vitriol. The number of times I’ve been called “dangerous” for posting well sourced data that clearly shows the IFR of covid is not 1-2%…

It’s as if people believe that any good news will result in others “not taking this serious”. They must feel that everybody needs to be scared stiff of this thing all the time… the result is the average person thinks if they catch covid they have a 10% chance of dying, which for most age groups is like 1000x off[0].

It’s super evil, really. If people were better informed about the risk profiles of covid, how many would have sacrificed a year and a half of their short life? Wouldn’t that imply that forcing this “new normal” crap by scaring the daylights out of people is a tad misguided and perhaps very unethical and immoral? If the only way you can get people to comply with your draconian interventions is lying to society about the risks of covid… well that is pretty fucked up.

Worse, by the way, is peoples risk assessment for covid is so completely wrong it makes debating public policy impossible. If the average adult thinks they have a 10% of dying if they got covid, of course they will want to mask little kids at school, of course they’ll cheer vaccine passports, of course they’ll rat each other out for sitting on a park bench. If they knew kids were at almost zero risk of covid, and their age bracket had minimal risks, would they have agreed to any of that?

[0] a fascinating data set: https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/

I remember when I first saw that USC dataset, it was mind blowing. Any public health official worth their salt should be absolutely horror struck that the public's perception of the risk profile of a disease is off by multiple orders of magnitude. Their entire job is to accurately inform the public about public health risks, and that dataset is proof that they've failed more spectacularly than I would have thought possible. They should be working around the clock to try to amend their failure, and earn back the trust they've thrown away.

Strangely, despite all the pearl clutching about "misinformation", this data-backed and quantifiable instance of covid misinformation never gets brought up. As a result, I now consider government / public health institution claims to be politically calculated fearmongering or propaganda until proven otherwise, and likely not worth my time to pay attention to. I'll update my opinion about them if their stance toward "correcting misinformation" starts to include misinformation like the above as well.

I'm not holding my breath.

Mmmm - I thought the problem was that the risk profile is it's not linear? So like, if enough people have it, they swamp emergency rooms, and suddenly, a lot more people are dying than would be dying at a lower incidence rate. So from a public health perspective, you're not really looking at 'how likely is this to kill people' but rather, 'how likely is this to crash an already fragile medical system' and thereby cause a lot of people to die.

I think the point about COVID is that if everybody just ignored it, this is absolutely what would happen, and case fatality rates could get pretty high.

You expressed my exact thoughts better than I ever could hope to. Thanks!

> It's highly ignorant to call unvaccinated Americans idiots.

Agreed. The correct term for them is "immoral". The only world in which it makes sense to forgo the vaccine is one in which your life is only one that matters. So a healthy unvaccinated person is making a perfectly rational decision, just a morally bankrupt one.

How is it morally bankrupt to care about yourself more than people you don't know?

How does getting a vaccine affect a young healthy person negatively?

It is immoral for the same reason as refusing to help others survive at zero cost to you.

> How does getting a vaccine affect a young healthy person negatively?

Isn't that a reason people don't want the shot? Because they're not sure of the answer to that question.

I got my 2 shots. Had to drive 1.5 hours each way both times, find someone to watch my kids and burn up 2 Saturdays that I could have spent doing something I wanted to do that wasn't getting a shot.

To claim there is zero cost is insincere at best.

I am not sure which country you are in because I can walk into pharmacies and grocery stores and get a shot while shopping. Vaccine appointments were booked out early in the year in the United states. You could have just waited. The US government/pharma companies cant produce 600 million doses in a couple of weeks.

For me both shots were zero cost, as for every other person I know.

I was flying all over the country for the entire lockdown period. I didn’t want to wait to get the shot.

You had a peculiar outlier situation that simply isn't true for 99% of Americans. Glad to see that you judged that the vaccine was worth spending 2 entire days on.

If you answer my question I'll answer yours.

The vaccine does not come with 0 cost.

What was the cost to you? Sore arm? Feverish for a day?

It sucks to be surrounded by people who won't give a shit about senior Citizens, immunocompromised neighbors or older folks in their own families. It is indeed a lack of morality.

There is some value in fitting in with society and showing those who are skeptical that there's nothing to be afraid of with a vaccine. And with more mandates going into place it's easier to just get vaccinated.

I've said from the beginning of this year that I'll get vaccinated as soon as the government gets out of it. At this point, the mandates are specifically why I refuse to get vaccinated. I caught covid in August so I'm immune for the next year at least. So there's no reason for me to get vaccinated and every reason not to.

> I've said from the beginning of this year that I'll get vaccinated as soon as the government gets out of it. At this point, the mandates are specifically why I refuse to get vaccinated.

Do you find any irony in your decision being controlled by the government's policy?

I agree with arcbyte, and I got my second shot in March. The amount of government interference as it relates to COVID and vaccines is complete bullshit. I hope we look back on this in 20 years and feel a deep sense of embarrassment for how COVID and the vaccine has been managed and used to emotionally manipulate and divide people.

When 9/11 happened it united the country. COVID should have done the same thing, but it has been used as a political tool instead, bringing out the worst in people. It makes me quite depressed when I think about it for too long.

After 9/11 a significant portion of the US was staunchly anti-war, organized some of the largest protests in US history, and yet they were ignored by the media and demonized as anti-patriotic. On top of that, muslim americans have had to endure years of racist attacks, not only from individuals but also from the state, in borders and airports, ongoing to this day.

If you think it "united the country" then you either have rose-tinted glasses on, or you had your opinion validated by the pro-war media and never looked elsewhere. The difference is that now the media disagrees with you.

That isn't accurate. The media doesn't disagree with me, the country is ripped in two over COVID and vaccines, there is no denying that.

Why do you say they disagree?

Edit: capitalization

Second edit: I didn't say the WAR united the country. You're twisting my comment.

The war was a direct response to 9/11, they're directly related, just like vaccines and mandates are a direct response to COVID. The country was ripped in two back then two, you just didn't hear about it as much.

I was wrong when I said the media disagrees with you though. Maybe the difference is that the anti-vax side has managed to organize through the internet and has gotten a lot more coverage, so they look bigger than they actually are?

> The war was a direct response to 9/11, they're directly related, just like vaccines and mandates are a direct response to COVID. The country was ripped in two back then two, you just didn't hear about it as much.

I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I still disagree. I was in high school when 9/11 happened, I remember it well. There was a period of time, I will admit it was on the order of 48-96 hours, where this country was as united as I’ve ever experienced. COVID could have had that same effect, us as country(wo)men against the world. It didn’t. From the jump it was politics. I’m sure you remember Harris and Biden saying they wouldn’t get a vaccine when Trump was president. It’s political all the way down.

You talk about an event that occurred over 12 hours uniting the country for a business week, and wonder why a disease that had been politicized and downplayed in contradiction to the science and what we were seeing in other countries for months before we saw significant numbers of infections in the US did not generate the same effect?

Of course it didn't. I don't understand why you think it ever had the chance to.

>I’m sure you remember Harris and Biden saying they wouldn’t get a vaccine when Trump was president. It’s political all the way down.

I remember their comments. I also remember the rest of the statements they made and the context around them. And neither of them said they wouldn't get a vaccine while Trump was president - they said that they wouldn't get a vaccine if Trump was the only one saying to get it, and experts like Fauci weren't.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...

> I remember their comments. I also remember the rest of the statements they made and the context around them. And neither of them said they wouldn't get a vaccine while Trump was president - they said that they wouldn't get a vaccine if Trump was the only one saying to get it, and experts like Fauci weren't.

that is another shining example of how COVID and the vaccine were used for political manipulation. Biden and Harris should have not made the vaccine about donald fucking trump.

Their stance was bullshit and you know it. In what world are global pharma companies going to develop a brand new vaccine using relatively new technology to try and stop a global pandemic, and the only fucking person to talk about them is Trump? Nobody else will say anything until Trump does? Trump would be the first and only authority on these vaccines? That's such a crock of shit.

> When 9/11 happened it united the country. COVID should have done the same thing, but it has been used as a political tool instead, bringing out the worst in people. It makes me quite depressed when I think about it for too long.

I've felt this way too. People have made this so incredibly, incredibly divisive. I'm not sure what blend of fear and tribalism is driving this either. When you talk to some people about covid, what comes out of their mouth is almost word salad--they are so incredibly fearful and panicked that almost none of what they say makes sense. The idea that society should completely alter everything for this one specific illness (aka "new normal") is pretty absurd, yet people will stop just short of spitting on your face when you express any skepticism at all.

Societies reaction to this is all just so freaking bizarre. None of what we are doing adds up or makes much sense when you really start asking questions.

> I caught covid in August so I'm immune for the next year at least.

Yeah and if you got vaccinated you probably wouldn't have caught it in August. Great hill to (hopefully metaphorically) die on.

Calling the unvaccinated idiots is about as effective as calling the obese, alcoholics, people who don’t take their medication, etc, idiots.

Apparently we have sympathy for people who fail to make good health choices except for the unvaccinated.

Not effective at all.

If someone were struggling with alcoholism, and I offered them an FDA approved shot to remove their addiction to alcohol, I would consider them fairly stupid if they refused it. Handling diseases and addictions is a long term struggle, not similar to a one time choice at all. It is orders of magnitude easier to get a covid shot than to rid yourself of an addiction.

There are FDA approved medications which are effective in treating alcoholism.

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/fight...

Those are all drugs which try to make curing addiction easier, but it's still hard and you're going to suffer withdrawal symptoms and take these drugs for months. Very different from this magical hypothetical. Probably taking something like one of these is, however, advisable if trying to get off alcohol?

It's not really fair to compare a healthy person to someone "struggling with alcoholism".

If you run into a bar shouting about the dangers of consuming alcohol while promising an injection that makes a person never want to drink again, I would consider you fairly stupid.

That's my point. Falling victim to alcoholism is not an apt analogy to getting a covid shot. People don't generally choose to become alcoholics. If you really want to make your contrived example fit, it would be something like a shot that prevents organ damage from alcohol, not desire to drink.

If such a thing were available, and people refused, and then got alcohol poisoning, then it is arguable that, on some level, their stupidity is to blame here.

Ok, but would you call them an idiot? That’s my point. Do you think calling them idiots makes them more or less likely to make the right choice?

I’m glad your not a doctor then?

First off, the vaccine does not eliminate the risk of Covid. If you went to an alcoholic and said “this shot has a 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side effects and you might end up quitting anyways” would you still call them an idiot for hesitating?

Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications if they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen. When they end up getting a limb amputated do you call them idiots as well?

> If you went to an alcoholic and said “this shot has a 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side effects and you might end up quitting anyways” would you still call them an idiot for hesitating?

Depends on the side effects obviously. If clinical trials revealed nothing but rare allergic reactions to shots themselves and priors based on established medical knowledge predicted a very low chance of anything unusual happening over the very very long term, it'd be a no brainer. Nobody just quits alcoholism. It's by definition a difficult process.

> Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications if they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen. When they end up getting a limb amputated do you call them idiots as well?

I would call them idiots if they were presented a single shot to cure them of type 2 diabetes and they decided not to, then lost their limbs.

> obese

Requires lifestyle change

> alcoholics

Requires lifestyle change

> people who don’t take their medication

Requires lifestyle change

> Vaccine

Requires a choice and a half day off.

There is a BIG difference there.

There's a little bit of an unfair comparison here. You say the vaccine is a single choice, but what I see, continued boosters, masks, social distancing forever, "I'm willing to make a small change in my life to end this." And you might say "I'm not arguing for those things though" but if you stop at one shot, a year from now someone is going to be calling you an anti vaxxer or covid denier for not wanting to turn this one shot into a lifestyle change. And that's what is expected of us if we are being honest, not one quick shot, but a permanent lifestyle change. Some people don't even want to start down that road.

The lifestyle change is a choice that we make. For those people that HAVE made these choices, should also have a choice into taking a vaccine when they don't need it, just to satisfy those that have not taken the choice to do the same. Those who are obese, alcoholics or whatever can then take the choice to get vaccinated to better protect themselves

The problem is that, by not getting vaccinated, they're not _just_ impacting themselves. They're more likely to get, to pass it to others, to introduce a variant, etc. We're all much safer if everyone gets immunized. Or, at least, so the prevailing scientific theory and minds indicate... and you can either believe them or chose not to with no actual facts to back up your position... and be called an idiot ./shrug.

What you call lifestyle changes I call “need to make a decision”. Patients make terrible healthcare choices all the time. If we’re going to hammer them on vaccines let’s go all in, huh?

Obesity causes massive costs and burden on our healthcare system yet I don’t see people calling them idiots.

A lifestyle change is something that you need to actively pursue forever. It's not just a one time decision and action. I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse, or you actually can't see the difference.

And yes, all the issues listed are ones that can (usually) be corrected by action of the person involved. But the _level_ of action is on a totally different scale.

>I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse

Given this guy's attitudes towards vaccines, I doubt it's intentional.

Then we agree - these are are healthcare choices where people fail to make the right one?

> What you call lifestyle changes I call “need to make a decision”.

Well I'd suggest not downplaying it that way. Going from a junk-food-and-soda diet to a healthy one is a huge shift in lifestyle. You don't just make a decision one day and that's that. You have to make that decision several times a day, every day, for the rest of your life.

Not getting enough exercise? You don't just sign up for a gym membership and consider it done. No, that's just the first step. Now you need to show up at the gym several times a week, and put the work in over and over again.

An alcoholic doesn't just decide to stop drinking one day, then poof they're cured. That decision is just the beginning. What follows is some mix of white knuckling in the beginning and an ever-present vigilance to maintain sobriety. It's not just "I don't drink anymore", but also "I need to come to terms with this issue or that relationship", and "I can't hang out at the bar every night anymore". It's a long-term project, not just a decision.

Getting a vaccination is not like that at all. It really is a single decision, once made, and never thought about again.

Obesity is also way more complex than taking a shot. Its not as simple as "eat as much as your neighbor". Minor systemic differences in metabolism can have huge long-term weight implications.

>Calling the unvaccinated idiots is about as effective as calling the obese, alcoholics, people who don’t take their medication, etc, idiots.

I mean, we should. And I say that as someone who is overweight and drinks more than I should. (Hm. Are they connected?!)

I'm fully aware that one of the most significant changes I can make to reduce my risk profile for all cause mortality is dropping weight, and have at times done so, and at times slipped back into poor eating and exercise habits. I'm in the middle one of the trends to improve it, but who knows if it will stick this time.

And yep, I'm stupid for not sticking to it. Or lacking in willpower. Or some combination of things that you would be fully justified in ascribing some sort of negative label to.

But if I could take a shot that makes me significantly less likely to die from my love of craft beer and cooking delicious, delicious, high calorie meals full of carbs and fat and not enough veggies, I sure would. If I could take a shot that made my body recover from doing strength training now in my 30s like it did back when I was in my early 20s, and less likely to have minor injuries, or even more likely to get me to return to the habit after recuperating from those injuries instead of staring wistfully at my garage door and thinking "man I really should get back to lifting weights", I would definitely do that.

I know I'm an idiot for not taking enough control over my own life to take care of some of the single largest health concerns. But I'd be an even bigger idiot if there was something as simple as a two or three dose vaccine regimen available to take care of those risks that I ignored.

The unvaccinated are putting others at risk, including kids. I can't say the same about the obese or people who don't take their medication.

There is no significant risk to healthy kids.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02423-8

Obese people take up health care resources that could go to keeping kids healthier at lower cost or making those resources more available to kids in an emergency.

asides from obese people / poor lifestyle choice people taking up health care resources, not only from Covid but they're also taking up resources from all other ailments that comes up BECAUSE they're obese. As well the culture today encourages plus size, like it's asking to overwhelm the healthcare system

obesity spreads too https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082 just not the way you think they do as a virus

Yikes. Idiots? All this condescension all the time.

Maybe some people won’t get the vaccine because they already had Covid. Israeli study showed that people who had Covid are more protected than the vaccinated.

Doesn’t hurt to get vaccinated anyway. In fact that should offer the most protection overall.

And that’s besides the point as the recovered may as well be vaccinated in the context of this discussion.

somebody's gotta be the control group in all of this, I'll take one for the team, in the name of Science

>There is NO reason to not be vaccinated at this point if you can be.

If you've already had COVID, especially recently, that's a pretty damn good reason to not get vaccinated given that your immunity is likely far stronger and more durable than a vaccinated-but-COVID-naïve person. [1]

While getting vaccinated on top might help (there is not definitive data on this yet AFAIK [2]), it is also not 100% risk-free. So why would you do that if you're already more immune and thus less of a risk / less at-risk than the vaccinated population?

For some people it might make sense to still get vaccinated after COVID recovery. But for those who choose not to, it's not at all fair to say they are all "idiots" or that there is "no reason" not to still get the shot. That's not accurate based on what the actual science tells us at this time.

[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant (P<0.001) for symptomatic disease as well. When allowing the infection to occur at any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naïve vaccinees had a 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease. SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that were previously infected.

[2]: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/why-covid-19-vacci...

None of these studies suggest that getting a vaccine increases your risk. It can only decrease it.

Is your claim that the vaccines don't themselves have any risks or side effects associated with them? "The vaccine, on average, will reduce your risk" is one claim that is correct for most people, but "the vaccine can only reduce your risk" is a much stronger claim that is not universally true (if you don't agree, consider whether one should get a daily dose of the vaccine).

My claim is exactly what it is. You don't have to modify it.

None of these studies suggest that getting a vaccine increases your risk. It can only decrease it.

> not sure what else you would call someone with such a skewed risk assessment

You could start with “a person with a skewed risk assessment.” I’ve found avoiding pejorative is a more effective persuasion technique. Maybe the people around you really respond to name calling?

> a vaccine that has proven to be incredibly safe and effective

I understand that there have been very few deaths or serious injuries from the vaccines. At the same time, I am aware of the unexplained menstrual side effects. I completely understand why women who plan to have children, and parents of girls, don't view the vaccine as zero risk.

Citation?

> But thousands of people in the U.S. think they may have had other side effects that drugmakers and doctors never warned them about: unexpected changes in their menstrual cycles. [1]

1: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/09/1024190...

Alright so I'd like you to draw me a picture of your reasoning behind the statement that we do not know how long immunity from infection lasts but we have a better idea with the vaccines. Because in the world I live in, we have had infections longer than vaccines, which means more data on immunity from infections than vaccines. Where did you get that statement from and why did you say it?

What if there's long term effects from vaccination? Seems to me we won't know the full risk profile for several more years.

I'm not at risk for COVID so it doesn't make sense to take on additional unknown risk in this case.

I also believe people should be able to make their own decisions, and believe I'm doing my part in exercising that right and sticking it to the man (which is more like a hive mind today really).

"Safe and effective" yet we don't even have a full year of data on it. How are people this clueless?

Are you talking about 1 year of data post infection or post vaccination?

>that has proven to be incredibly safe and effective,

There are no long term studies so calling it incredibly safe is misleading at best. What happens if some issues start cropping up in 5 or 10 years.

>Research has not yet shown how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19.

So it could be longer than vaccines? Some places are already pushing for boosters since vaccine efficacy is waning. It seems like we should look into this.

>There are no long term studies so calling it incredibly safe is misleading at best. What happens if some issues start cropping up in 5 or 10 years.

Do you think this is a thing we do in general before starting to produce and distribute vaccines? If you are under that impression, I must inform you, it is not the case. We do not spend a decade watching for vaccine side effects before we begin vaccinating people, even when the situation is "normal" and not the same as COVID.

I don't really care if people want to take a vaccine without knowing the long term effects. I have an issue with trying to force others to take it. If you believe it is safe then take it. If somebody doesn't then they shouldn't be required to. If you are going to force people to take a vaccine they should have all the information.

Not with the delta variant.

While I agree that the rational course for anybody who is able to get vaccinated is to get vaccinated, people may still have reasons—however irrational—that are not idiotic.

Lets say you are a person who has had substandard health care all your life. And justly see the medical system as something not catered for people like you. You know the history of inhumane medical experiments being conducted on your ancestors as early as a generation ago. You also know that the medical profession has had severely wrong and racist theories about health care for your ethnicity.

Now the medical profession asks you to trust them and accept the vaccine.

Now I am not that person, and where I’m from the health care system has proven it self to be extremely valuable for me personally and those who I love (and coincidentally has one of the highest vaccination rate in the world). But if I put my self in other’s shoes I can easily understand how vaccine hesitancy is only natural.

Now what to do about it: Respect peoples concerns, e.g. don’t call them idiots for these concerns. Try to understand and educate. If people still don’t want the vaccine, don’t panic. Keep giving vaccines out for free to those who want it (and please include poorer countries). Perhaps if enough people are vaccinated worldwide it will slow the spread and mutation rate of the virus enough that we won’t have more of the mass waves of new variants and the vaccination status of each individual becomes irrelevant.

Anecdotally, I decided not to get the vaccine. Three weeks ago, my friend who had gotten the vaccine got Covid, and then gave it to me. (He also beat me in golf that day which says a lot more about my golf than his ability to play while sick). But anyway, we both lost our sense of taste and smell, had fevers, were achy, him up until about a week ago, me up until a couple of days ago. So, perhaps he would have had an even tougher go at it had he not been vaccinated, but to me it seems we both suffered just about identical outcomes.

I roll a six sided die. You roll a 20 sided die. We both get a 4. I guess they're the same.

It is upsetting to me that you appear to believe vaccines replace the role of your immune system.

The whole point of the original comment was that 1. someone with the vaccine and someone without both had an identical reaction to the virus and 2. just because everyone on the pro-vaccine side makes claims that this vaccine is safe, there are no long-term studies on it. So my point about my immune system was that yes I was willing to roll the dice and deal with the virus when/if it came to me. And I did. I will get downvoted for this on this particular site, because it is way more skewed to people that feel that the vaccine is a safe and effective measure. But, I didn't roll a 6 sided die while my friend rolled a 20 sided die.

There are no long term studies on COVID. But what informatrion we do have suggests it can cause prolonged damage.

Including erectile dysfunction.

Damn near (i.e. I no of no exceptions but I'm hedging my bets against the nit-pickers) every respiratory disease comes with a litany of possible long term effects that tend to mostly affect the people with the worst cases. Covid doesn't yet seem to be particularly special thus far in terms of likelihood or severity of long term effects.

If you can't breath stuff in your body breaks. Water is wet. More news at 11.

Reads to me like dismissing a burning building because it's just a typical fire.

COVID doesn't need to be worse than other respiratory diseases to be a problem if the baseline level of long term damage is bad.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

How do you think a vaccine works?

Most vaccines contain the actual virus. This vaccine does not.

Some of them are traditional inactivated virus vaccines. If that's your only point of concern, you should simply be advocating for J&J.

All of them still work by teaching your own immune system.

the difference with the J&J isn't the payload (spike protein), it's the delivery mechanism (adenovirus vs. mRNA)

That's not quite correct. Neither contains the spike protein. The delivery mechanisms are two different ways to tell the cells to produce the spike proteins. The immune system then learns how to respond to the spike protein presence.

The mechanisms are the payloads. They're different formats of the spike protein recipe.

Except the 6 and 20 numbers are ones you just made up to support your position and make yourself feel warm inside but this fact just makes your entire statement meaningless and at the center of your grin at your own wit is an empty, hollow nothing.

His point was that two processes can result in the same outcome when dependent on more factors than just the quality of the process. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the better process, just that it does not guarantee a better outcome. Only a better chance of a better outcome.

Though, based on the actual data we have, his numbers aren't bad for cases, and would need to be shifted to a dice with a lot more sides than a d20 for hospitalizations and deaths.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90675524/delta-variant-vaccinate...

Given the R0-value of Covid, the likelihood is fairly high that you spread the virus to other people. Your amazingly impressive immune system would have absolutely crushed the virus with the help of a vaccine, and perhaps you would have had 0 symptoms and been totally non-contagious. Someone could be in a hospital bed because of your decision. Food for thought.

Last I checked, it's unknown how much (if at all) the vaccine reduces spread.

Anecdotally, the CEO of my company just died of Covid.

Anecdotally, my uncle who was otherwise healthy died months after getting the jab. And my sister's husband came down with some major fatigue/fever issues recently after the jab. So again, I took my chances based on the facts I had, yet I will get downvoted because they aren't in lock step with most of HN.

So, at first you claimed you didn't want to get the vaccine because a friend got it and still got sick. Now you claimed your uncle died from it and your sister's husband got serious sick from it. I wonder why you didn't mention that at first to make your point, instead of using the much less serious case about your friend. Make me skeptical about everything you said.

No, it wasn't that I didn't want to get the vaccine because my friend got sick. The fact was he had the vaccine, and got me sick and we both had as close to the exact same experience during the sickness. The second parts about my uncle and my sister's husband I can't really prove they are related to the vaccine, but were just in response to the previous commenters. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Apparently my comment was also not in lock step as you say. I'm not questioning your decision but if we're providing anecdotal data points then we should provide as many as possible.