Or perhaps it's a matter of personal principle. Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US ... to the point that conscientious objectors wouldn't be forced to fight in wars (they could be assigned to work as medics in Army MASH units, for example, as my grandfather was in the Korean war). In modern US politics, it has become politically incorrect to have a personal principle or conviction that contradicts the approved viewpoint, or otherwise goes against the grain.
Because consideration for personal liberty has gone by the wayside, people are reacting by flatly refusing to be vaccinated. Many are convinced that the vaccine is actually harmful... and I'm convinced that viewpoint only gained traction because of the strong-arming going on in government.
It would have been much better to communicate clearly what we know, keep updating that communication regularly as new data comes in, fund efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, and let people choose without mandating anything. I'd bet the world would look very different today, and far more people would be vaccinated, if the US government had taken this route.
I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past. The 1798 Sedition Act ‘made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials’[0]. A congressman went to jail for speaking critically against President John Adams. President Nixon tried to suppress the 1960s cultural revolutions. The US has always had a bit more of an authoritative twist than the American History books write.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams#Alien_and_Sedition_...
I feel like this mythical conception of the history of America has been increasing with time.
> I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past.
And your attempt to use the historically trivial 1798 Sedition Act in the manner that you did indicates you may have the opposite and mistaken mental image. If anything the US learned from the Sedition Act and became better for that very short-lived mistake.
> It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.[2] The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War.[3] The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.[4]
Holy moly! Land of the free indeed.
Anecdotally, my mom didn't believe it was a real virus even after I got it, tested positive, and got pretty sick in 2020. When she and my unvaccinated dad got it in summer 2021 and Dad was hospitalized with severe illness from it, she changed her mind on it being real, but is still convinced there are conspiratorial forces behind it, the vaccine, public health measures, etc.
Trying to pretend that the top levels of government are free from corruption and that Pfizer is the one good company that isn't evil and that there isn't a major incentive for Pfizer to ensure approval and mandates, and those imposing mandates don't have incentives to do so, whether implicit or explicit, is simply naive.
So all that talk about the military industrial complex wasting money to waste money to ensure dominance isn't likely, or even possible? Because thats exactly what people believe is happening with pharma. And that's what people believed was happening to pharma until Covid.
The question isn't whether Pfizer is an Evil Corporation (of course they are). The question is whether the vaccine that they manufacture and market is effective. And in the full light of day, they proved, first in randomized trials, and then in the real world, that their vaccine is safe and effective.
Full disclosure, I was a test subject in the original Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial, and continue to be a test subject in the booster trial.
You sure it was "COVID denial" that poisoned the well of information and not:
1) Health officials lying about masks at the start of the pandemic 2) Government officials encouraging people to crowd into primary booths during the height of the pandemic to vote in the Democratic primary. 3) Health and government officials declaring that it was safe to attend riots and mass street protests, but not to go out for any other reasons. 4) That it was a racist conspiracy theory that COVID was created in a lab and not started by people eating bats in China. 5) That the vaccines were safe and effective, and that you couldn't get or spread COVID if you were vaccinated. 6) That vaccines would never be mandated. 7) That its absolutely essential that every receive(at least) a 3rd dose of the vaccine as a "booster" when even the most favorable studies show that "boosters" reduce the odds of serious illness and death only by fractions of a thousandth of a percentage point.
At this point the well contains no water at all - just poisons - and it isn't the skeptics who are responsible. At this point anyone who isn't skeptical about what they are being told by our Dear Leaders has their head buried deep in the sand.
My guess is that you also don’t understand the reasons why others are denying the vaccine. Do you think some people are incapable of doing the only thing that will help us, isolating? Vaccines are child’s play to staying in your damn house.
From my perspective it’s the vaccinated that keep this pandemic going. Exactly in the spirit of this statement. “Vaccinated and done”. People think once they get vaccinated they can continue life like normal. Meanwhile the unvaxxed i know are isolating and most still haven’t caught COVID. The few that have realized, after having few or minimal symptoms, that this entire mandate thing is about control.
TLDR, no they’re exactly on point. Democrats are wannabe dictators and the goal of the mandates are an attempt to test power.
Can you truly say these things with a straight face, in light of the countless laws banning voluntary consumption of drugs and the millions of harsh prison sentences that have been handed out for breaking those laws? People literally lose their freedom - they are put in poorly-maintained cages - for exercising their personal liberty in that fashion. That has been standard procedure in this country for generations with little dissent. Yet the voices that seem the loudest against vaccine mandates (voices that barely exists for the dozen or so other vaccine mandates over the generations) don't seem to be speaking up to these far more grievous and damaging violations of personal liberty.
Liberals support "my body, my choice" when it comes to abortions, but they don't want you to have a choice over whether or not to get the vaccine. Conservatives support "my body, my choice" when it comes to vaccines, but don't want to you have a choice over whether or not to get an abortion.
There, it's settled. You're all hypocrites.
And for the record, I'm triple vaxxed, anti-mandate, pro-choice, and think all drugs should be legalized.
But when it comes to abortion, it's not "my body, my choice", according to pro-life advocates. It's two bodies, one of which is not yours.
There's more nuance in these discussions than can be reduced to a slogan or talking point. "Freedom" ought to map to what gives people the most personal liberty possible while restraining evil and its proliferation. But pursuing that requires defining "evil" which maps directly onto worldviews -- and we land squarely back at square one.
We all may be hypocrites in some way, but the real problem is that we don't agree on what is good and evil -- or rather, that a sizable portion of the population (or all of it) is wrong on that most important question.
Modern US politics is what it is because of strongly differing worldviews.
Also - the Covid vaccine is really more like religion in that - most parents are fine with vaccinating their children. But like religion - now they’re choosing which vaccines (gods) they don’t believe in and it mostly comes down to tradition. There’s almost no logical thought in it.
Im also anti-mandate but certain job should require you to wash your hands with soap and be vaccinated to keep your job (teacher, nurse, doctor ..) but nobody is forcing you to choose those jobs.
On the contrary, I think we're at the other extreme. There would be an uproar if people were even forced to work as medics today -- or to do nearly anything at all beyond their own self-interest.
I was forced to be vaccinated as a child to go to school, and there were no exceptions for personal convictions. There was also no uproar. Everyone did it because it was normal and there wasn't any legitimization of "alternative" information.
It seems to me this is really the cause far beyond any other factor. The fragmentation and "democratization" of media over the past 15-20 years led to a devaluation of expertise and qualification. It's not so much anti-elitism anymore (although they seem to overlap) but simply that nobody cares what your credentials are, they are no longer necessary to reach a mass audience.
(This is also the cycle against seatbelting.)
It's a great argument, so long as "rejecting a vaccine during a pandemic" meets the same moral tests as "opposing war". In fact it does not, and so this "personal principle" is quite silly and actively harmful.
The government has not done anything in mandating vaccination that it has not done, over and over again, with total societal unanimity. Until some people decided there was political hay to be made with a bad, dumb argument about "personal principle" and now tens of thousands of people are dead for no good reason.
It's super dumb, and the "personal principle" argument fails every test you could throw at it.
You say this, but you don't name any criteria by which this judgment should be made.
Could you elaborate?
It's not hard to understand the difference.
Why do the people that accept driving on the government mandated side of the road for public safety, who accept food being cooked to government standards for public safety, who have gotten the other multiple government mandated vaccines for public safety, who don't get into fights in stores for being required to wear shoes for public safety, who don't march against government mandated building codes for public safety, and so on for literally hundreds of items, suddenly obtain "personal liberty" for this particular vaccine, which has killed more Americans than any event in history?
Because they've been fed a constant stream of chaos from the grifters milking them, grifters that mostly got the vaccine themselves.
It's amazing what culture and virtue signaling can do.
The fact that so many people disagree with your position seems to suggest that you might not be as correct in your thinking as you believe.
The fact that so many of those dying right now are precisely such people, and by using up so much hospital resources, they are causing others who where responsible to suffer.
Correctness in thinking is not popularity. It's demonstrable statistical evidence.
>perhaps they think that none of what we are doing kept those 800,000 out of the grave
This is complete nonsense. There is no question whatsoever that vaccinated people are not dying at the rate unvaccinated are. I work with a decent number of medical personnel, and more importantly, can read the science.
>Perhaps they, rightly in their mind, think there are far worse threats out there than Covid and being asked to make such a significant sacrifice doesn’t make sense.
Are you claiming that the outcomes from taking the vaccine are worse than the outcomes from not taking it? Care to provide a single peer reviewed, published article that supports this?
That statement does not make sense under any possible rational interpretation.
"No serious adverse effects" < Nonsense. People have been injured and died from these vaccines. Perhaps you meant to say "side effects so far appear very rare"? (which I'd agree with).
If there are no serious side effects we can remove the liability protections drug companies currently enjoy right?
I do agree the vaccines work to an extent for some months. They have reduced deaths. I'm glad they exist and would encourage any vulnerable person to take them. But my risk profile is very low. My Covid experience was a short cold a week ago. And the statistics aren't showing they do a whole lot to prevent transmission.
So I won't be playing any level of Russian roulette with unneeded pharma products, even if it's a 1 in a million chance of serious issues or death.
This is deeply irrational and highly antisocial behavior. It it disgusting and awful. Bodily autonomy is not that important, either.
To you.
If bodily autonomy isn't that import rape only lasts 10 minutes so what's the harm? Nope, it's of primary importance.
Lose some weight and keep your D levels high, get vaccinated if you chose, and stop demanding that everyone engage in risky or unnecessary performative behavior to create an illusion of safety.
Really, how many? How many have died that didn't take it that could have?
Those honestly medically unable to take it (which is a crazy small number) compared to those that don't out of willful ignorance is a drop in the ocean.
>So I won't be playing any level of Russian roulette with unneeded pharma products, even if it's a 1 in a million chance of serious issues or death.
hahhahaha.... Right now you'll not take something you claim affects under 1 in 1 million while helping spread something that has killed 1 in 400 in the US. That's a difference by a factor of 2500. 2500 - think about that. And has likely given millions lifelong permanent damage.
You really prefer a 2500 times increased death rate, and view that as defensible for society? Really?
Now, let's look for demonstrable numbers. About 500 million doses have been given in the US last year, 206 million people fully vaccinated, many partially vaccinated. Where are the hundreds dead by your claims? There are currently (as far as I can tell on Google scholar, CDC, etc.) exactly ZERO people whose death is attributed to the vaccine.
So go ahead and show me your data.
So it's not 1 in a million - it's likely more like 1 in 100 million or even fewer that die from the vaccine. 1 in 400 die from COVID.
This clearly shows the lack of compassion, understanding, numeracy, that such arguments display.
In many (most?) adult cases the risk from the virus is many times greater then the _known_ risk from vaccines. No argument.
But the risk from the vaccines is not 0 and we should be clear about that. Additionally (and this is one of my main issues), the risk of allowing big pharma subscription model to be instituted by force is also not 0.
That number seems to be nonsense [0]. Since the VAERS data is on the CDC site, care to show me the real number? It looks like this claim is QAnon nonsense.
Do you understand what VAERS is? It is an adverse effect, death, from ANY reason, following someone taking a vaccine. The reason is to LOOK for things caused by vaccines by follow-up investigations. A VAERS deaths is not a death caused by a vaccine; it is a possibility.
So far, ZERO of them, count it, ZERO have been shown to be from the COVID vaccine. Here's another take [3] on the actual VAERS data: "no evidence has established that a COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. caused any deaths".
If someone is old, takes the vaccine, and dies from old age. That is a VAERS death. Given that about 400,000 people die a year from old age, many of them are going to be VAERS entries. It's the followup studies that determine if there is any issue caused by COVID vaccines, and so far, there simply is not.
Here [1] are the VAERS reports for the past 21 years. Go ahead and read about before you make such goofy assumptions. I'm pretty sure the COVID vaccine wasn't killing people in 2002. Here's [2] an overview of the VAERS program. First page, in bold, so people don't do what you are doing: "a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event".
Read that again: "a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event".
Now, please show me the report, study, publication (not some rando website or youtube video), that has shown these deaths to be caused be the COVID vaccine, because there just isn't the evidence.
>In many (most?) adult cases the risk from the virus is many times greater then the _known_ risk from vaccines. No argument.
So why subject yourself, your loved ones, those around you, and your community to the "many times" greater risk? I honestly don't understand how someone could believe they're putting so many at risk for such severe consequences and simply continue to do it. The death and destruction is obvious. Go to your local funeral parlor and ask them about it, if it's real, and watch some families come through, and see how many are glad they exercised bodily autonomy. That should be a sobering experiment.
And the risk of transmitting it to others, the risk from straining the medical system so others that need help for other things, vastly increases as the unvaccinated spread the disease more and more, is completely immoral. Just because the unvaccinated don't see the deaths and destruction don't mean they're not contributing through ignorance and self-absorption.
I'm pretty sure we're done here. You've obviously believed a lot of bad sources of information, and have posted a decent amount of super easily disproven stuff. I've found it's not generally worth the time to unwind someone from this, since it takes so long for someone to get into this state. You are the rare one that also seems to believe that vaccination has vastly better outcomes than not being vaccinated, yet still refuse it, which is odd.
I would recommend you find higher quality information sources to base your beliefs on - start with things rated as unbiased as possible, like Reuters, and completely avoid crap like youtube, facebook, tiktok, or any of the zillion fringe sites designed to suck people into a cycle of chaos and fear.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid19-vaers/fact...
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/...
[3] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/sep/20/facebook-p...
What that means is you can determine when you are "done here". You don't determine when "I am done here" (unless you somehow control access). It's a lazy attempt to shut things down and have the last word so as to appear correct.
You point to a fact checker, a "trusted news source" for one month, that says the number of deaths claimed for the month is not exact and say "see, not proved". I'm sorry that is very weak.
There has been a massive uptick in VAERS reporting since the introduction of this series of vaccines. Massive. Now, understood these vaccines are being administered widely all at once so they may or may not be more dangerous then say, the flu vaccine. And in raw numbers, so far, the risk of taking them appears very low.
But they have a risk profile. The manufactures admit it. The CDC admits it. Myocarditis has been observed. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the corresponding (very large) uptick in deaths reported in VAERS might be responsible? One would have to be willfully blind not to acknowledge that.
You never address unknown future risks. It's obvious it was unknown (or unstated) that the vaccines would only be effective for such a short time without continuous boosters and exactly how effective the vaccines would be. What else don't they know or are not saying?
You never show, nor has anyone else, that "others around me" is a valid consideration in the context of transmission. So I take them "for the common good". How long does that last? Not a year apparently.
"Straining medical system". Not on my part. That's a very weak argument. It's largely untrue in the extreme and perhaps points to larger problems with the medical system if the 500 or so people currently hospitalized (with not from Covid) in my state with a population of millions is breaking things. What other things might be "straining the medical system"? Can we start mandating on that too?
You haven't "disprove" anything as you claim, just more "you are dumb, Q nonsense" and lazy attempts to circumvent. Yes people have died from the disease no need for the emotive funeral home spiel.
You can leave off statements like "ignorance and self-absorption". You don't see me saying "scared, cowardly, unperceptive, and prone to authoritarianism".
This is apparently a highly emotional issue that makes people on all sides not be as objective as they may be in other contexts. I've made my points and don't have much else to say in this thread. I don't fault you for your point of view and assume you have good reasons for it but do not agree it's objective.
I just posted the data, which you ignore. Post this "massive" increase, because, as I show next, ....
>There has been a massive uptick in VAERS reporting since the introduction of this series of vaccines.
This amuses me - you put such effort into reading the worst materials and believing them, while ignoring any good, reliable sites, or putting any thought why there might possibly be an uptick in deaths not attributable to vaccines that also shows up in VAERS....
Maybe there has been an uptick in deaths unrelated to the vaccine, say, perhaps, from the worst pandemic in 100 years? Gee, guess what. Increased deaths for ANY reason will increase deaths in VAERS.
COVID was 10% of deaths in 2020. That is a large increase, so large, that life expectancy dropped. It's a category that did not exist in 2019. The US death rate soared 17% in 2020, with no vaccines, leading to, you guessed it, a ~20% increase in VAERS deaths, because the underlying population is also dying.
Before the vaccine. Yet you are happy to put the blame on a vaccine that had not been invented?
Same in 2021.
If you actually find the VAERS deaths, and look at the graphs (which are public) you will see no such massive uptick - there is one, which begins, you guessed it, when COVID started, not when the vaccine did.
So, again, cite a source. Because this is not true, except for tiny values of "massive"... And again you will not cite a source....
This is why it's not worth my trying to give you data - you ignore, attribute the least thought out and nonsensical claims attributable to data that is easily explained not needing such fear and doubt.
Again, any death in VAERS cannot be attributed to a vaccine until a study determines the cause. Stop making this simple reasoning mistake. It's clearly stated on the VAERS site that this is faulty reasoning, I pointed it out, and you do it again.
Seriously - why do people believe fringe sites, youtube idiots, facebook, ticktok, over the people that have put entire careers into hard science to solve precisely this type of problem?
>Myocarditis has been observed
This is the perfect example of spreading fear and doubt. Quick question: which has shown more likely to increase the chance of myocarditis: getting the vaccine or getting COVID? Hint, one has been shown in peer reviewed, vetted, published papers to have a vastly greater (over 10x) chance of leading to myocarditis. Yet you continue to recite the fear and doubt nonsense on the opposite side of what the actual evidence is. The evidence so far is not getting a vaccine leads to a higher chance of getting myocarditis by a large margin since it comes along with COVID.
Seriously - put the time into learning this stuff before you continue to spread more ignorant fear, which is exactly what such statements are. They are the opposite of reality, completely well documented, yet you must have consumed enough nonsense fear sites to repeat it without simply looking at the evidence.
I'll help you - go to google scholar, google covid myocarditis and read rates, then add the word vaccine, search again, and read the rates. Done. Now you know, and should never repeat such nonsense again. But you won't put in the work and will repeat it I am quite sure.
>attempt to shut things down and have the last word so as to appear correct.
No, it's realizing that, as I wrote, people that have worked themselves into such deluded worldviews do not change easily, so becomes worth less and les of my time the clearer it becomes such people straight up ignore well presented data. I've requested multiple times you source ANY of your claims with reputable sources, and so far, zero. I only continue since others that are not like that do learn from such discussions get better knowledge. And it's interesting to see how people rationalize behavior.
Once I realize that someone does not want to look at evidence, look at data, cite and inspect reputable sources, it is clear they are not someone who uses reason to make choices or adapt. At that point it's sometimes useful to poke them enough to anger them into looking stuff up. Or give up on them. That's the game, purely rational based on actions.
Has this been quantified or is it just hand-waving? Because it's very obvious transmission is widely occurring regardless.
I've already explained how the vaccine does not help me. Was not needed.
We know short term risks exist from vaccination, we know people have died, we know that it is rare to have very serious side effects (like death). What about long term risks? More hand waving claims of "unlikely"?
The end of your post is a long way of saying "well you are dumb". Ok, whatever. If you don't want to accept rationality or have different views of human agency, it's not my business.
I've clarified my position on these vaccines. I'm glad they exist, I recommend vulnerable people take them. I don't need them and won't be taking them. Unless it can be clearly shown it would be of great benefit to others (we've already established minimal risk for myself). And that somehow taking the vaccines with immunity from previous infection already existing is needed to do that.
You would have ended up with full hospitals everywhere and people dying in the streets, and the Delta variant way before a vaccine was ready if we didn't do lockdowns.
Non-medical interventions were also employed during the 1918/19 flu pandemic, also in the US. In fact, when things like school closures were initially discussed people were literally looking up old data from the 1918/19 flu pandemic to see what, if anything, we could learn from the non-medical interventions back then.
I doubt that we would have been able to create a vaccine (as quickly) in the 70s or 80s. Our knowledge about corona viruses wasn’t there yet and we also didn’t have plausible easy technological paths towards a vaccine.
So that would have sucked a lot. Really, a lot. Given that I think we would have necessarily accepted more deaths – but it would still all have been quite annoying since you really don’t want to run your hospitals at 110% all the time even if you are willing to accept all the deaths.
It’s just that now vaccines do provide a good solution with dramatically reduced deaths, hospitalizations, even (though much more limited) spread. Which makes it all the more frustrating that people aren’t taking advantage of that.
So I’m not so sure why you think that if we miraculously had an effective and safe vaccine for a novel pandemic corona virus in the 70s or 80s we there wouldn’t be mandates. Seems quite in line with US and overall Western tradition.
Presumably we would have increased hospital capacity, rather than slightly decreasing it [1][2].
[1] https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals - total staffed beds 919,559
[2] https://www.aha.org/statistics/2020-01-07-archived-fast-fact... - total staffed beds 931,203
However, covid in the 70s would have been substantially worse than the flu - a large reason covid nowadays is not deadly is due to increases in quality of care.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-joe-biden-no-vaccines-ma...
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/
> Harlan ruled that the vaccination law did not violate the 14th Amendment because the police power of the state may be allowed to constrain individual liberties through reasonable regulations when required to protect public safety. He reasoned that individual liberty does not allow people to take actions regardless of the harm that they could cause to others. Harlan felt that the plaintiff had failed to show that the vaccination law was arbitrary or oppressive, or not reasonably required for the safety of the public. He noted the increasing presence of smallpox, which prevented the plaintiff from convincingly asserting that the rule had no real or substantial relation to protecting public health and safety. Although the plaintiff presented evidence that some doctors believed that the smallpox vaccine was not effective and could cause further diseases, Harlan pointed out that the opposite view represents the common medical belief and is followed by more reputable doctors.
Not the same thing at all. And you also don't want to go down that road.
EDIT: Getting downvoted so here's the primary holding. Read it for yourself.
> A state may enact a compulsory vaccination law, since the legislature has the discretion to decide whether vaccination is the best way to prevent smallpox and protect public health. The legislature may exempt children from the law without violating the equal protection rights of adults if the law applies equally among adults.
Take drunk driving, for example. We don't give people the freedom to do that. On the other hand, we do allow people to smoke and to eat unhealthily, both of which impose costs on the rest of us. So there seems to be a balance - we allow some behavior that impacts our personal freedoms, but not egregious impacts.
So: If someone doesn't get vaccinated, how bad is the impact to you? Given that vaccinated (and boosted) people can still get infected and spread the infection, how bad is the impact to your personal freedom to live a healthy and free life if someone doesn't get vaccinated?
Vaccines reduce transmission. They do not eliminate transmission completely.
Personal conscience and conviction -- as overwhelmingly stupid as the vast majority of people are with or without it -- is at least extremely important for the minority of people who end up being front-runners for society.
But so too is society a super-organism, in which we are but cells. And cells which actively spread disease for their own sake are kind of independent to a flaw: cancerous one could say.
Maybe there's a better world in which context is a factor in whether or not a persons convictions are the most valuable thing in the room. Personally, I'd say if you're killing others for your beliefs, then your beliefs should be allowed the same treatment. Whereas if your beliefs are merely unpopular.. well, I wouldn't fix a car with a popularity contest, let alone a toaster or an entire fucking government.
Some reading I've done recently has changed my mind on this. Check out the recently released unclassified (but suppressed) DARPA documents on the SARS-Cov2 virus.
It appears there actually has been a significant information war going on from the top... but I suspect it remains to be seen why exactly the campaign took place.
in any case, i have friends here in progressive seattle who were part of the “vaccinate and done” group back in Apr/May but once the governor used vaccine uptake as an excuse to enforce new mandates now say “i’ll get the booster once i know doing so means i get to go back to normal”. so mandates definitely do push a certain type of otherwise compliant person away from getting the vaccine. i only have anecdata, but i think it’s worth keeping an eye on that viewpoint. could this “vaccine and done” group grow into a “reject mandates (including boosters) and done” if the mandates prevent them from actually being “done”?
And it's starting to look like a pretty good description. There are plenty of people who were on-board with the "temporary" restrictions initially who are now doubting that these promised marshmallows are ever going to be delivered. I'm vaxxed. And I'm done. Good luck on getting your marshmallows.
Blind mistrust in authority is as detrimental to long term outcomes as not being able to delay gratification
Whats the magic number? There are places like New York that have 95% over 18 with at least 1 vaccine and 83.3% with completed vaccination status. But the problems still persist and the entire focus is on those last few percent of people moving the needle, when in the past we've been told "herd immunity" would be conservatively reached at ~70%.
The at-risk should get used to wearing an N95 mask, but I'm done complying with mitigation measures (I'll get future boosters if they actually do anything for me).
In a few decades, coronavirus may actually end up being just as lethal as the flu! One can hope, at least.
> Take-home message:
> - The idea that viruses always evolve to become less lethal because it is advantageous to them is an old theory that has been shown to be wrong
Thank you for correcting a misconception of mine! :D
[1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19/do-bad-viruses-al...
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
Per your link, not NYCity, and not NYState. Maybe some regions of NY have that number?
Also, people under 18 exist. Vaccinating adults-only is never going to create herd immunity.
https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/demographic-vaccination-da...
I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks.
Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most studies I've seen say it is much better. This makes sense to me, a natural immune response in a healthy person should be stronger than a vaccine, given that all a vaccine is supposed to do is "train" your immune system via an immune response to a "simulation" of the actual virus (apologies for the gross oversimplification).
I thought the marshmallow test was in the other direction - the millions of people who acquired natural immunity through infection, but "grabbed the marshmallow" in the form of the vaccine. What will the long term effects be? We don't know.
FWIW, my immunity does seem to have been pretty effective, since I just tested positive for Covid. My only symptoms were a light headache and backache. My wife, however was sick for around three days with fever and sore throat laying right next to me in bed, coughing. I took care of her, kissed her on the forehead, etc... I didn't get as much as a sniffle.
Thank you for bringing this up. It isn’t “anti-science” to ask these type of questions and expect answers.
Indeed, it has always been the job of the FDA to hold drug companies responsible for proving that their drugs do not harm. Guilty until proven innocent. Given the rushed approval, incredible profit motive, reluctance of the FDA to respond to FOIA requests and the strong pushback against those who ask questions I think some skepticism is warranted.
So far, the cost-benefit for those not in high risk groups (especially children) seems waaaaay off. Why vaccinate children that are at almost no risk of serious illness when we clearly do not have all the info on long term vax risks?
There has, however, been evidence of long-term effects of catching COVID in some cases.
It is pretty obvious which option to take with the currently available evidence.
So far, there hasn't been nearly the same amount of public scrutiny as with your average vaccine, either. Sure, people have taken in record numbers, but we have far less information about long-term effects than usual. And certainly, there have been extraordinary incentives to push vaccination, along with extraordinary mismanagement of the pandemic in general.
The difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated isn't that one is more ethical or risk-averse than the other. It's a difference in estimation of where the most risk resides: in the disease, or in our management thereof.
The eyes of the world have been glued to this. People actually know the different "brands" of vaccines. Tabloids have discussions on them and their side effects … the scrutiny and expectations from the public seem extremely high, so I’m not sure why you think anyone involved in this could afford to no be very tough and detail oriented in the scrutiny of this vaccine.
This seems like a deeply weird worldview that doesn’t in any way match up to reality. Your statement seems highly implausible and just makes no sense. Do you have any concrete evidence to back it up?
the vaccines came out last year, there hasn't even been a long term yet.
mrna vaccines are definitely new science, unless you can point me to another mrna vaccine that has been distributed to the public at this scale?
This tells you nothing about the predictability of the practice of the science. It also cannot be used to gild by association anything that wishes to be marketed as a "vaccine".
A couple of people have died, I'd call that a long-term adverse effect. Presumably way less people than would otherwise have died from Covid, so not to say you shouldn't get vaccinated. But to claim there are no known long-term adverse effects is wrong.
Long-lasting but quickly appearing adverse effects, like death, are pretty well understood and are calculated in.
“Vaccine” is a word like “chair.” It tells you what it does, not what it is made out of.
That isn’t how it works. A word means what people understand it to mean.
But…semantics. Whatever.
The main issue that the parent comment touches on is that this is a new process for developing a vaccine and it isn’t honest to compare this to vaccines we’ve been giving people for decades.
There is a heck of a lot we don’t know. People are intuitive and they sense this. They aren’t anti science, but they do know when they are being sold something in a less than honest way.
Their definition seems pretty close to that of Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=define+vaccine
> a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease
But to be fair, at this point, I don't know why we discuss mRNA vaccines, there's been traditional vaccines available for people to take as well such as J&J and Novavax. So even if you don't want to take risk with mRNA since its a newer mechanism to use for vaccines, one can take J&J or Novavax instead.
Novavax I don't think is available yet.
Also, please see vioxx to learn more about how pharma will push drugs with known, serious side effects and try to bury the evidence.
Most of these people have their professional lives tied up in a specific drug. You better bet many of them will do damn near anything to push it thru regardless of the human cost.
Remember that when there is wrongdoing the individual whistleblower is the exception. The only person out of many that was willing to come forward to do the right thing.
If there's any long term effects, the drug companies are well insulated from any blowback.
I know this is a dangerous topic, especially on the internet with strangers, so feel free to just not respond - that would be understandable. But I am curious to hear your thought process.
The mechanism by which mRNA vaccines work is different than standard vaccines. What are the unintended consequences? You have no idea. What is the risk if of COVID, especially the weakened Omicron strain?
The CDC Director states that 75% of COVID deaths occurred in people with 4 comorbidities [0]. For someone under 50 that is fit and isn't overweight, COVID is statistically nothing to worry about. And this person already got sick so has natural immunity.
What is the sense in assuming the prudent course of action is injecting a new pharmacological substance in your body instead of just allowing your own immune system to protect you naturally? Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered. What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing. What is risked? You don't know. I think the smart money will be on the side of the cohort that avoided this mind-virus of being gaslit into taking some pharma drug instead of just facing the minimal threat head on.
[0] https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange/status/14805951564830720...
In any case, common sense says the natural coronavirus would be handled by your body in predictable ways versus the new mRNA engineered substance. Are you telling me since you got the vaccines, you actually think you're going to avoid getting COVID? If this is not what you think, then what the hell are you talking about?
The reason is in part because there is less variability from dose to dose of an mRNA vaccine than there is among extant variants of viable SARS-COV-2 coronavirus. That makes it easier to predict what will happen.
And it is in part because mRNA vaccines are built up from the existing biochemistry of the body. That is, mRNA vaccines are not a new thing we created, they are a distillation of a natural system that we discovered and studied.
Your immune system provides very little natural protection until after you have been infected at least once, which subjects you to all the risks of actually having COVID. The point of vaccination is to get your immune system to that point without having to go through actually having COVID first.
> Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered.
Vaccines aren't most drugs. For the mRNA vaccines all ingredients are known to be long term safe except the actual mRNA itself, but the mRNA makes no permanent change nor does it last very long, so any bad effects from the mRNA itself must show up short term. (This has also been the case for all previous vaccines--if something bad was going to happen it didn't take long to show up).
The spike protein that the mRNA instructs some of your cells to make also does not persist. Your immune system does react to it which will cause long term changes--but those changes are the whole point of vaccination, and they are the same changes that would be made if you were not vaccinated and caught COVID.
In an alternate reality where SARS-CoV-2 was not going to become endemic and it might be possible to purposefully avoid getting COVID long enough for us to eliminate the virus you could maybe make a case for that instead of getting vaccinated.
We are not in that branch of reality. Unless you happen to have a short remaining lifespan, you will get COVID at some point. The health downsides of doing so unvaccinated are now a superset of the health downsides of getting vaccinated first.
> What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing.
An order of magnitude reduction in the risk of hospitalization, and an even larger reduction in the risk of death, from COVID.
A) Hasn't been around long, we know it can have some horrible long-term effects. B) Hasn't been around long, have found almost zero long-term effects, yet.
A has at least 100x chance of dying than B, and at least 1000x chance of hospitalization.
And you think it is sensical to choose A? I don't get it.
The vaccines will not prevent you from getting covid. So what's with all the convoluted thinking where you pretend you won't get it?
The risks of death from covid are a rounding error if you're young and healthy. People mistakenly act as if this disease is affecting everyone in severe ways equally. It is drastically skewed to older and unhealthy.
You have no idea what the long term effects of the vaccine are stop pretending like you do, it's ridiculous.
"When new vaccines are released, the unknown side effects, if any, show up within two months of vaccination. This history goes back to at least the 1960s with the oral polio vaccine and examples continue through today." [0]
"First, when these [delayed side effect] events occurred, the onset was within eight weeks of receipt of the vaccine. Second, in all of these cases, except narcolepsy following H1N1 vaccine, the side effect of the vaccine was something that could be caused by the infection, meaning that getting infected with the virus also carried a risk of experiencing these outcomes. " [1]
"Forget adverse effects over five or ten years: the way your immune system works does not allow for such long-term safety concerns." [2]
[0] https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...
[1] https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-va...
[2] https://bostonreview.net/articles/the-long-term-safety-argum...
I didn't, in fact the opposite. You have no idea what the long term effects of covid are stop pretending like you do, it's ridiculous.
You're playing russian roulette and have the choice between two guns. One has 1000 chambers, the other has 1000000 chambers, and you are choosing the first one and acting like you are relying on statistics.
There doesn't seem to be a solid reason to take the vaccine, for me specifically. Could easily make me sick for a day(s), with a very small chance of even worse side effects.
Some of it I'm sure is a personality trait, I just generally need a good reason to do things.
If vaccines passports or other such measures get introduced (UK) I'll get it reluctantly, because that's a bastardized reason & a benefit.
It comes down to three things:
1) the studies I've reviewed, which overwhelmingly support the strength of natural immunity
2) the adverse reactions that I've seen personally (I personally know more people that have had more severe reactions from the vaccine than I know who have had severe outcome from covid - purely anecdotal, but hard for me to ignore), and from VAERS (truly frightening), and
3) the very strange authoritarian approach the government and media have taken with this. I don't know of any vaccine or drug trial that would have survived the number of adverse effect that have been reported without being pulled. We keep seeing strange things like the CEO of Reuters being on the board of Pfizer as [1] mentions. But it's immediately flagged on HN. You can't even discuss it. Medical opinions from highly qualified doctors and health experts being silenced, accounts being canceled and removed from FB, Google, etc... frankly, it has me creeped out. I've never seen anything like it.
The "othering" of people who make informed choice about vaccination and decide against it is extraordinary. It's a global phenomenon. You can see it in some of the responses to my comment here on HN, even. Take a look at the downvotes for my comment - just for saying that my natural immunity seems to be robust. There don't seem to be many people willing to engage in an open and honest dialog about this, other opinions are silenced by any means available.
Maybe it's because I'm older and cranky, maybe it's because of a deep distrust of centralized authority, but the more someone pushes me to do something, anything really, the more I tend to resist.
When I couple that with the risk/reward evaluation and the advice of my doctor, all things things come together to make me decide not to do it.
A severe outcome from COVID is hospitalization. You seriously know multiple people who were hospitalized as a result of a vaccine? (X) Doubt.
The "othering" is because people who opted out of getting a vaccine have endangered the rest of us. It appears you've continued to participate in society, as evidenced by your reinfection. People generally shouldn't be surprised that they face social sanction when they act in an antisocial way! If you drive recklessly, you go to jail. If you don't get certain vaccines, you don't get to enroll in school. You can't smoke indoors, or even close to doors, in most parts of many countries.
The fact that your "informed choice" is driven more by gut feelings, selection bias, and an innate opposition to any and all authority further underscores the point.
Unvaccinated people are a danger to vaccinated people???
Isn't the main purpose of the vaccine protection against a severe case of COVID? I don't understand why someone who is vaccinated would feel endangered by anyone, regardless of their vaccination status.
Haha seriously…this has become such culture war bullshit at this point.
Many people that share your opinion feel so strongly that they "know the truth" and "are right" that they feel justified in "othering" - even though most have no qualifications for the subject.
I'm not sure what causes this, or what the solution is. It's certainly not how science works, or how a liberal society should operate. If those are values that are still important to us, I feel like there needs to be some sort of solution to this.
Maybe the problem lies in the medium. I wonder if you would be so hostile if we were discussing this over beers somewhere? Perhaps. I hope not.
Society is generally hostile to behavior it views as being in the latter level of seriousness and talking about it over beers doesn’t generally make people more open to the idea that you are risking their lives
> Society is generally hostile to behavior it views as being in the latter level of seriousness and talking about it over beers doesn’t generally make people more open to the idea that you are risking their lives
That's what's so strange about this, isn't it? I haven't seen any evidence anywhere that deciding against getting the vaccine puts anyone else's health at risk. I've certainly heard some politicians say this, but I haven't seen it backed by any reputable studies. The phrase "pandemic of the unvaccinated" has been bandied about quite a bit, without any supporting evidence that I'm aware of.
From what I've seen, omicron is spread by fully vaccinated folks without much inhibition. Apparently, being vaccinated reduces the severity of an already (relatively) mild variant. So why all the hyperbole? Why the draconian mandates? Why ignore the demographics of vulnerable populations and insist on mandates for everyone? Even children?
Risking lives? Unless you have severe comorbidities or are very elderly, there's asymptotically approaching zero risk of a severe outcome from any Covid infection, especially not with omicron.
You've struck to the heart of the matter. Somehow, many people have been convinced, against all reason and science, that deciding against getting vaccinated is somehow antisocial. Why? What are the motivations involved? Who is doing this? There's a reasonable argument that skipping that vaccine isn't smart, but antisocial? That's a very different and aggressive narrative.
It all comes across as very scary to those of us who don't necessarily agree with the prevailing interventions of the past couple years. They don't appear, on the surface, to be evidence based.
Lockdowns certainly were not, and now that we have retrospective data, we know that they were ineffective and in most cases quite harmful.
Universal masking wasn't effective, but some states and companies are still requiring it. Why?
Shutting down schools was a societal nightmare, with no demonstrated benefit. Yet we see some places doing it again. Why?
At each step of the way with these interventions, those who argued against them were also considered to be "antisocial" and were silenced, ridiculed, and othered.
Now we have mandated vaccination, ignoring immunity status and demographics. Even for children, who have a much higher risk from the flu than they do Covid. Doesn't it seem strange? School districts don't mandate the flu vaccine, but several have proposed mandatory Covid vaccines? Doesn't it make you wonder why?
What could possibly justify Austria's extreme measures, police brutality and draconian mandates? In Australia, a grandmother was just put in jail for not wearing a mask. I've seen videos of similar things happening in the U.S. How can we even pretend to be a civil society and tolerate this?
Why have we allowed ourselves to believe that "othering" anyone is ok? These are the first steps down an extraordinarily dangerous path, history shows us.
It's been so sad and disheartening to me to watch our society progress from "free hugs" towards a dystopian nightmare. Were we always so fragile? Were our liberal beliefs always just a beautiful lie waiting to be exposed at the first test?
How would you square this with unvaccinated people filling up hospitals preventing those with unpreventable health issues from getting care?
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/covid-hospitaliz...
My response is that, like everything, there's a ton of nuance.
It requires a very careful reading of that article, paying attention to not just what they say, but what they explicitly fail to say.
First, I couldn't find any reference in that article to people being denied care, did I miss it?
But regardless, it's a really great example of what causes a lot of my deep suspicion. For example, the article details the low hospitalization rate amongst all vaccinated people, with lots of zeros after the decimal point, presenting it as evidence for the effectiveness of the vaccine - however, it doesn't mention anywhere the rate of hospitalization for the unvaccinated. Most likely because the numbers would look very similar to the reader.
Another example, the article says that most of the vaccinated covid patients are elderly, or those with severe comorbidities. It doesn't mention, however, that that is also true for the unvaccinated.
Another omission - the article doesn't discuss the difference between patients with covid, and patients admitted because of covid. That's an important variable, but until recently it's been a bit suppressed.
Another thing the article fails to mention is confounding factors like age when considering vaccination rate and infection rate. It's a confounding factor because (according to what I've read) the most completely vaccinated are young, healthy people. Many cranky older people like myself are not. That's a pretty important confounding factor when you're looking at hospitalizations and comparing populations.
The article is pretty heavy on hyperbole, but doesn't mention that hospitals (especially the ICU's) are designed to operate at or near capacity. Hospitals are sized based on the community they serve and must remain mostly utilized in order to remain profitable.
One fun thing to do that demonstrates this is to go back and search for articles for years prior to Covid, where there would be hysterical articles about the flu "overwhelming hospitals" and "ICUs at 99%" etc... it's an old trick that the media plays, historically it was to garner ratings/clicks. Is that still the reason? Could be.
That article is deeply misleading, at best, in my opinion. It goes to great lengths to paint a very distressing picture, without providing objective analysis. It's a great example of what I've been talking about.
I could mislead in the opposite direction. I could say something along the lines of "Great news everyone! Covid is over. In Tarrant County, for the first week of January, there were only a total of 11 deaths out of 22,000 cases, and all of those had underlying conditions. In january, your total risk of dying from covid was .000005, and if you are healthy it's zero! So hug everyone, don't worry!". According to the Tarrant County, TX Covid 19 dashboard and tracker, everything I just wrote it 100% true, but it's highly misleading.
It's completely understandable how someone could be mislead by an article like the one you referenced. I typically try to avoid the media reporting like that because the quality is so poor, to quote Thomas Jefferson "Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."
I typically go to reputable medical journals and critically evaluate the studies (to the best of my ability). It gives me a very different picture than articles like that paint.
https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/coronavir...
For people aged 18-37, risk of getting hospitalized is 10x if unvaccinated: https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/...
The case rate is not as much higher for young people, only 2x, but the hospitalization rate is 10x higher. This is the youngest age group as well, and the data is worse as the age increases.
Putting the two together, the picture is clear: there are people in the ER (or ICU) that don't really need to be there, and because of how easy it was to avoid they are directly responsible for the suffering they cause in those who have to wait. I'm not sure how a layer of nuance beyond these facts can change that.
The situation is that anti vaxxers are assumed not to be automatically wrong, but to be noise. There is zero useful information to be had from engaging with them.
If they go against the scientific consensus it means nothing, if they don’t have an opinion on the scientific consensus, it means nothing, and if they agree with the scientific consensus it means nothing.
There’s this implicit assumption that everyone in a conversation deserves to have their opinion heard or examined, but these guys have burned every shred of credibility they have
I'm sorry, I had to sort of chortle at this one.
According to that doc, the chance of hospitalization is 0.00037 instead of 0.000036 in the age group you mentioned for the unvaccinated.
Sure sounds a lot more scary to say "10 times the chance!" though.
The largest hospital in the area, Barnes Jewish Hospital with over 1,100 beds had only roughly 10% of them filled with covid patients as of the last week in December. Most of the hospitals were no where close to capacity.
Mercy hospital, the second largest after Barnes had an average of 102 of 959 beds filled with Covid patients, again somewhere around 10%.
Also, these are patients with Covid, not necessarily patients admitted because of covid.
If we take the article's statistic of 2/3 of the admissions being unvaccinated, then for Mercy, for example, 67 of their patients are unvaccinated Covid patients, possibly incidental to their admission reason.
We're seeing 50-70% of "Covid admissions" in some places are actually "incidental", they were admitted for other reasons [2]. So the real number of unvaccinated sick covid patients at Mercy is probably somewhere between 30-50.
St Louis has a population of almost 310,000.
Doesn't really seem worth breaking out the pitchforks over, does it?
[1]https://data.thespectrum.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity/miss...
[2]https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-safety-outcome...
Full disclosure: I am one of these people.
As it is, I view not getting the vaccine as anti social because the rate the unvaccinated are getting hospitalized at is tipping over our healthcare system. I might not feel this way if the unvaccinated were consistent and laid in the bed they made but it seems like a rare occurrence. What I am seeing is the unvaccinated being up all these claims about adverse affects and the rushed nature of the vaccine development combined with “possible” long term side effects. The same people then end up rushing to the hospital and taking all sorts of medical treatments that were also rushed or filling themselves with the random chemical of the week to stop covid(ivermectin and the hydrochloro something one).
It’s a negative externality that’s gotten too big to bear and I view the behavior as the same level of anti socialness as major polluters
Do you have data to prove that the healthcare system is "tipping over"? Not articles from media outlets, but hard data.
ICU and inpatient bed utilization has been remarkably consistent throughout the entire pandemic (roughly 70-80%).
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend
I’ve looked at hard data for discussions around these issues for nearly 2 years. Every time the anti vaxx crowd has been wildly incorrect, but claim that where they moved the goalposts to is a reasonable position that I will need to do hours and hours of research to even question.
I ran out of energy to deal with the firehouse of bullshit they spew constantly and at this point the anti vaxxers need to convince _me_ if they want anything they’ve said to be even considered.
If that upsets them because I’m not considering their “freedom” to limit my freedom and safety then were at an impasse, and it looks like my side has most of the power so good luck
Liberty is the result of those who hold power willfully divesting themselves of it, and using what remains to protect the inalienable rights of the individual.
This idea that power itself is a justification for action - it is anathema to any form of liberty. It carries the stink of tyranny and oppression - those that believe it share in dark and disturbing company.
Edit: removed some questions that while not intended to be negative, could have been interpreted as directed personally to the parent poster.
Do you think your a good person? I literally cannot empathize with someone who believes they should not get a vaccine because of freedom issues and thinks they are a good person. I do not submit to your position that I need to defend my way of life. I, and many other americans, are done with acting like the sane option in life needs to be defended against an insane group.
And yes, I understand how both sides think this way about each other. This is probably why we are going towards violence/revolution because thats the normal course of action whenever 2 groups in a country can no longer find a common ground. I am still not willing to cede the idea that your point of view is the standard and mine needs to be defended
> Do you believe in a liberal, civil society?
Do you believe in a liberal, civil society where people are allowed to fire rounds in the air or near your head because it didn't immediately directly kill you? Is it ok for you to take some action that is spreading a disease that's in the top 3 causes of death in our society because you don't feel like it?
>I wonder because I see a lot of people who do, but then say things like this, and I wonder how they justify it internally.
I justify it because the current path you and your ilk is suggesting leads us to a complete breakdown of society and economic regression. Your side is incapable of operating in a system where your actions can generate negative externalities that can break down society, and unfortunately reality is a system where that is true.
>The idea that power itself is the final justification for any action, is anathema to any sort of concept of liberty. It carries the stink of tyranny and oppression - those that believe it are in some dark and disturbing company.
Power isn't the justification. Power is your problem to deal with because we have no sympathy for your side when you are advocating what sounds like social suicide.
If you want a tl;dr, the vaccinated group is warming up to the idea that the unvaccinated group is no longer part of the same society. This is a line in the sand and where you stand is the group you are part of. The "othering" you mentioned in other comments is the act of people implicitly realizing that this reordering of tribes is occuring
A better analogy would probably be “eating a peanut butter sandwich in the lunchroom”
Because everyone has been clearly and explicitly asked to get vaccinated to protect the vulnerable members of society.
Experts often get things wrong, but they tend to become less wrong over time. See the shifting consensus about aerosol spread.
Experts think vaccines are a good idea. The data continues to reinforce that position.
If you were a family member, an old friend, or otherwise closely connected to me, I'd talk to you on the phone. I love my family, and I would not sit down and consume anything with you. You literally could not pay me enough. Not because I abhor a liberal discussion--quite the opposite. You've shown yourself to be irrational and unwilling to adapt your position, and as a result you've managed to catch Covid a second time. Your wife got it too? I'm not going to waste my time and breath on you.
Consider this: what would it take for you to reconsider your position? Because billions of doses of several different vaccines have been delivered to an exceptionally weary world, and a tiny fraction of those recipients have seen negative side effects.
Vaccinations are more effective at preventing disease than recovering from the native variant: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
Would you have a meal with a vaccinated family member? Why is that safer than a non-vaccinated?
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/case-numbers-and-spread (COVID-19 cases by vaccination status)
even if I think I've mastered the material, I still study before the final exam. because...why wouldn't you?
Its too bad that my comment kicked off just the sort of nonproductive back-and-forth I was hoping to avoid with my phrasing (in the other threads, not in your comment). Sheesh.
I appreciate the genuine question, and I don't mind explaining my reasoning. It's a complex subject, highly nuanced and riddled with early and inaccurate data and conflicting studies.
There's also a huge political component to it, which inevitably drags personal identity and emotion into the conversation. Back-and-forth and hostility are going to require a lot of disciple to avoid, which we thankfully mostly see on HN.
It's been strange to watch my karma fluctuate wildly from my comments in this thread. I would love it if there was some sort of indicator on HN about magnitude on votes. Right now, my comments are roughly net-neutral, but my karma has swung about 10 points either way in this discussion.
I would suggest that as concerning as your fork-three factors are, they should have no input at all into your personal health decisions!
Chickenpox (a form of herpes) lies dormant in the system for decades causes Shingles. Vaccinations are recommended at 50+ for people who have had the former to prevent the latter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenpox
A vaccine would have lowered the odds of that, and it will still lower the odds of it happening again in the future. On the other hand, the risks and downsides of getting vaccinated are negligible.
This is like asking why it's worth driving sober when you already have seatbelts (masks) and airbags (natural immunity).
>the risks and downsides of getting vaccinated are negligible
You can't know what the long-term effects of this new type of vaccine are. Especially given people have to take it over and over again for to have any effectiveness, so negative effects could possibly accumulate. But it won't prevent catching COVID anyways. Like 5 of my friends and family recently got COVID over Christmas that were all vaccinated. The stats on case numbers bear this out: vaccinated are catching the Omicron strain. The vaccines can't stop this. Natural immunity works many times better than these vaccines and providing protection against infection anyways. This is how it will go, no matter how many boosters you take.
This is a disease that mostly harms the old and the obese. Just workout, lift weights, get vitamin D and lose body fat. This is what should have been promoted for most people, not worrying about getting 4 rounds of an experimental vaccine that doesn't protect you from actually getting the disease.
>No one suggested that the vaccine would prevent infection 100% reliably
Sure they did, but whatever. It's over man. People need to wake up from this brain rot and move on with their lives. They've destroyed young kids childhood development[2] and they can't let it go. You got young healthy people that have no business worrying about this virus still panicking and avoiding real social lives.
>better understanding of the long-term effects of covid
Because it's a coronavirus that you can't generally avoid getting as it becomes endemic (and weaker). The threat is normal like most other coronaviruses. What is new and novel is the experimental treatment that has to be retaken over and over to actually do anything but will fail anyways. And there already are side effects. Long term, you can't know what this will do but common sense says avoid this, and accept the minimal "risk" you can't avoid but which runs its course quickly and easily (covid).
[0] https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange/status/14805951564830720...
[1] https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/what-sh...
[2] https://www.macleans.ca/society/the-cruel-ridiculous-reality...
If you have a gripe with the recency of mRNA technology, you could just as easily advocate for more traditional alternatives. If you're scared of needles and don't like being pressured to get an injection, you could just say that. As-is you're discrediting yourself entirely.
Sure they did [suggest that the vaccine would prevent infection 100% reliably]
The comment you're replying to (mine) certainly did not. I'm not sure who you're referring to.
They've destroyed young kids childhood development[2] and they can't let it go. You got young healthy people that have no business worrying about this virus still panicking and avoiding real social lives.
Sure. None of that is my preference and it isn't relevant to my comment.
Myocarditis being the main one:
- Postmarketing data demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within 7 days following the second dose. [1]
- The true incidence of myopericarditis is markedly higher than the incidence reported to US advisory committees. (preprint) [2]
[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/151707/download
[2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268209v...
Is pretty semantically different from
> There are literally only downside risks from taking the shot.
Which I think was the poster’s point about right wing talking points coming from a brand new account
It is laughable to try to turn everything into left-right politics.
Is eating pineapple pizza leftwing or rightwing extremism?
People who are relying solely on disease recovery are far more likely to be reinfected, and face worse outcomes, as compared to people who get their full three-dose vaccine (two primary + booster).
Incidentally, your thought process is suffering from the naturalistic fallacy.
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/reinfe...
Assuming that natural immunity is still up to date and kicking, then there shouldn't be any issues with this. After all, the body should recognise and then proceed to battle the vaccine.
You may experience symptoms, but at least the way I understood it these are short term, not in the long run.
On the other hand, if the natural immunity has weakened then this is good training.
So really, as far as I can see there is no reason to ever not take a vaccine unless you had an infection just a short while ago
That is the exact opposite of what i have read. One random example:
And the CDC essentially admits the vaccines no longer do much to prevent spread (due to waning protection and new variants). Maybe previous natural immunity has seen the same reduction, but you can't assume that.
The article's description of the "vaxxed and done" mindset is not very different from what you have described -- we accept that the disease will be endemic, and we treat Covid like we treat the flu, including keeping up with annual shots.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall...
That situation is impossible to assess without knowing the job description. I would also be hesitant to work at a place if the employer demands vaccinations because they are refusing remote work even when the job description does not require it. We have a pandemic and employers need to minimize unnecessary risks like open floor plans and crowded meetings rooms for employees that doesn't need physical proximity in order to do their job. On the other hand if the job description is being in a hospital or elder care facility, it would be irresponsible to let nonvaccinated employees treat clients. Everything between is a sliding scale that in a pandemic should lean towards safe rather than unsafe.
Every person who get injured at work is to some degree harmed by the company that allowed that injury to occur. This is why companies has insurance to deal with that. If vaccinations is required for the job then getting vaccinations is by definition work, should happen during paid hours, and any adverse effects dealt with as with any other work related adverse effects.
Such as?
It's also worth nothing the sacrifice to be made isn't consistent and is highly subjective to an individual. A single person who moved to a new town and spends months isolated, or a business owner, etc. is making very different sacrifices from a person who's in a stable marriage with a family working a software engineering job.
Coronaviruses in general are endemic to humans, and SARS-CoV-2 in particular appears to infect animals. Even if at some point no humans carried the disease, it'd still come back from some cross-species transmission. The only "done" state I ever expected is/was the same situation we have with influenza -- annual vaccine and seasonal waves of illness.
I have many reasons. Unrepentant corrupt, incompetent, and lying governments and pharmaceutical corporations are among them. But the biggest ones are my anger for coercion and threats of financial ruin people have suffered; the collectivization of health and personal responsibility; and finally I just don't like the way I'm spoken to about it and so I take great pleasure in the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the ruling class enraged by the commoners who refuse to bow down and submit to them.
This is certainly beside the (your) point, but it's worth mentioning that mourning and grief (ie, to "cry for the world that was") is a crucial and possibly unskippable component to "live in the world that is."
They're certainly not mutually exclusive activities, and I'd love to see more STEM demographics recognize the former's necessity.
Sure it does. My body, my choice. I have no problem quarantining myself and have left my house less than 40 times in 2 years. I’m quite capable of managing my health and preventing others from getting what I don’t have so why take the risk with the vaccine? Do you believe that there are no long term effects?
By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
All your "what if"s remind me of the "what if it causes fertility issues?" that swept the internet last year despite zero valid supporting data. Well my wife and I trusted the actual data instead of internet speculation, as well as the data showing what COVID can potentially do to fetuses, and we got pregnant well after both being fully vaccinated. Thus far the baby appears healthy (genetic testing clean, strong heart beat, correct size). So it turns out the experts were right on that one, and it's more directly relevant than your Vioxx example.
At this point it's not a matter of time in many cases, because it's already been shown in the data for certain demographics that the personal risk is not worth the personal benefit.
Non eradicating vaccines during a pandemic of disease with transmissibility as high as COVID are actually a terrible idea for the same reason not finishing your antibiotics is: It applies selective pressure that promotes immune escape and treatment resistance.
>By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
This is a new level of newspeak. Releasing without testing is testing. Slavery is freedom. War is peace.
This is a completely normal part of the approval process, simply because (phase 3) studies with a couple thousand participants will miss very rare side effects (if they exist) because, you know, statistics.
Of course you can trust a vaccine much, much, much more if it has been administered to a couple billion people as opposed to a couple thousand people, with no serious side effects being observed (or the side effects that are observed accounted for and reacted to).
You implication that this is somehow newspeak is deeply weird and irrational.
Newspeak isn't newspeak. Got it.
Long term data doesn't exist. There's no evidence the vaccines are safe long term. They also experienced greatly accelerated trial periods with data and time that would have been woefully insufficient for any other medical intervention. The data, results, and methodology for the trials is currently embroiled in scientific and ethical controversy.
To state they are "the most well tested vaccines ever" is blatant gaslighting. Widely distributed is not tested.
This is something that I see authoritarian pro-mandate people do all the time and it genuinely confuses me. Why do you do this? Do you think that testing with a billion people for a year will give you the same data as testing a hundred million people for ten years? Or is it just a genuine mistake?
I work in medical R&D and there is a long history of drugs and products with delayed failure and unintended consequences. I think the chances are low, but anyone who claims they are zero is lying.
Chronic lead poisoning, mesothelioma (cancer usually caused by abestos), lung cancer (cigarettes), various types of cancer caused by Agent Orange, and cancers caused by DDT take years-to-decades to manifest. Asking for 20 years is completely reasonable and supported by a dozen other substances that do have long-term side effects on that timescale.
> Also their timespan is almost certainly long enough that any pandemic would be long over by the time they'd trust it, essentially precluding vaccines as tool during a pandemic if everyone were to adopt their perspective.
Almost everyone that I've heard (except for a lone hardcore anti-vaxxer) who has expressed unease at the safety of the mRNA technology in general, not the specific application of it to SARS-CoV-2 - which is understandable, as there's no long-term trial data available about it. Several said that they were waiting to take the Novavax vaccine, which uses an older technology (subunit) that has been in use for decades.
So, assuming that the majority of people uneasy about taking the vaccine adopt that stance above, then no, there's no "precluding vaccines as tool during a pandemic" because the criteria is whether a particular vaccine technology has been tested for decades or not, not the particular payload.
> By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
Testing a vaccine with one million people for one year does not translate into ten years of study for one hundred thousand people. You cannot predict long-term effects with short-term data, and long-term effects are what these people are worried about. Nobody except hardline anti-vaxxers (who make up a tiny tiny minority of the population that I'm not discussing here) wants every single payload+technology combination to be tested for decades before use.
> Well my wife and I trusted the actual data instead of internet speculation, as well as the data showing what COVID can potentially do to fetuses, and we got pregnant well after both being fully vaccinated.
I'm reminded of a line from a sibling comment: "you get 0 applause from me if you randomly guess a “what if” correctly" - and without actual data as to whether mRNA vaccines have any long-term side effects (which is the issue under discussion), you're just guessing.
Finally, I'll preempt one of your talking points "We don't know what the long-term side effects of covid are either, yet, so why not pick the less risky of the two?" Because that is a personal choice - so it's up to the individual, not the government to impose.
It's generally a good strategy that, given ambiguous information, you still make the best use of what you have and pick the least risky option (i.e. vaccines) - however, in the specific case of vaccines in the US, the fact that the US government has shielded vaccine manufactures from legal liability means that there's significant downside in case there are long-term side effects.
If you want more people to take the vaccine, you should be campaigning hard to get that law repealed. I don't see anyone railing against anti-vaxxers doing that, so the more likely explanation is that these people are merely using the vaccine as an attempt to increase government control.
I do stand corrected. One made it to human trials. Doesn't mitigate dozens of disastrous animal trials.
That said all vaccines have side effects for some populations. There a reason why when you get your flu shot they ask you if you've had any previous bad reactions to flu shots. That doesn't make the flu shot or any vaccine a bad bet, sometimes you bet with 99% odds and end up the 1%.
if you don't want to get vaccinated, don't. no need for poorly reasoned rationalizations
We have limited information in almost every decision we make, yet we still have to decide (inaction is itself a decision). The key is what you fill in those bits of missing information with, not the results of the decision as no one is clairvoyant.
This sounds like a gambler. “You’re putting $100 on black?” “Yeah, I could lose $100, but what if I’m right?”
For both the gambler and the anti-vaxx you get 0 applause from me if you randomly guess a “what if” correctly. You only get credit if you had a hypothesis you could intelligently explain and then tested it robustly. Kind of like the scientific process.
It’s fine to play “what if” games for fun, but not smart if you’re trying to play the odds, then you need more substance in your decision making.
Like “what if eating vegetables ends up causing heart disease?” We’ve been wrong about nutrition before so “who knows?”
Your nutrition example is a great parallel because if we would have looked at the funding and long term data regarding the food pyramid, simple carbs, etc vs fats instead of just "trusting the experts" we wouldn't have an epidemic of obese, diabetic gen x and millennials. There's tons of sound empirical evidence about the long term health benefits of vegetables. It's complete false equivalence
When I create a website, hire someone, fire someone, etc., I have no knowledge of the decision’s long term effects. My one simple act could make the world a paradise or destroy it, but I have no evidence or reason to believe in either of those scenarios so I ignore it and focus on outcomes that seem reasonable given the information I have at the moment.
It’s fine to question the long term effects of a decision, but if you’re doing so with no information or insight, you are just randomly guessing.
So better than “what if X happens?” Is “what if Y causes X to happen because of Z?” Then we have the basis of a hypothesis that we can discuss.
In the veggie example: “What if eating veggies causes heart disease because of Z?” “Z” is where the beef is :)
No you aren't. You are doing the empirically sound thing and accepting the null hypothesis, the baseline of being unvaccinated, in the absence of sufficient evidence that the long term effects of the vaccines are more beneficial than detrimental.
Do you use any technology created in the last 20 years? 20 years isn’t long enough to properly study long term effects.
Or take any medicine developed in the last 40 years?
We jump into the unknown every day. You’re free to make whatever decisions you please, but when you make the decision to maintain your current baseline and reject a new option, ideally you’re doing that out of some informed position or rational fear and not simply because that option is new.
That’s why the interesting conversation to me isn’t “I’m waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects.”, it’s “I’m waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects because _______”. That’s where the meat is because it helps convey why this decision isn’t like discussing a new topic or using a cellphone or taking Lipitor.
How about this? "I'm waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects because no data exists regarding them and it would be empirically and scientifically unsound to confirm a hypothesis (that the vaccine's long term benefits outweigh the costs) without sufficient evidence to overrule the null hypothesis and default state of being unvaccinated."
That’s my point. There’s nothing wrong with your theory on paper. But in practice I’m willing to bet those that believe it selectively apply it. And that’s where my curiosity lies. In the absence of negative evidence how do you determine when to “wait for long-term data” and when do you “just go for it”?
Like using a cellphone. I’m sure many of those that want to “wait and see” on the vaccine readily use cellphones and didn’t feel the need to “wait and see”. What’s the difference? I’m genuinely curious. Is it the expected utility?
As an example to the last point: many people did wait a long time to adopt cell phones and smart phones on the basis of worries about cancer, but there was already overwhelming evidence that non ionizing radiation doesn't cause cancer, so their concerns were misguided. Their concerns about novel devices were not applicable because the techniques and methods were not novel.
On the other end of the spectrum, X-Rays used to be a form of acne treatment, and there was no evidence on the safety of using them as such, just on the efficacy of the technique. As a result, many people ended up with all different kinds of cancer in their face, because there was no long term data on ionizing radiation's effects on DNA. The technology and the technique were completely novel and unstudied.
I never worried about getting cancer from a cell phone, because there was ample evidence proving the safety. I never would have gotten x-rays as acne treatment.
Right, but they’re taking an action in response to a specific concern: cancer. When approached in that way, it can be measured, tested, debated, etc. Even if they’re wrong, they’re putting forth a useful dialog that can be approached scientifically and then put to rest.
This is opposed to a non-specific concern: something being new.
If you don’t do something because of the unknown, that’s fine, but you don’t get any kudos for being right down the line if it turns out to be dangerous. You basically bet on something going wrong and sometimes you’ll be right, sometimes you won’t, but your decision making process was not informed by information or probabilities in any way. And as with many conspiracy theories you can never really be wrong, because who knows, maybe data will come out in 2 years, or 10 or 20. Something can always go wrong later if you don’t define what you’re worried about and then retroactively claim that thing that went wrong as the thing you were worried about.
That's exactly what it is and will be informed by, and that information right now is zero. There's no evidence to support the hypothesis' conclusion, therefore I reject the hypothesis at present. That's not always going to be the case.
It's in no way comparable to conspiracy theories because it's a falsifiable premise. Statistical significance can and will exist about the long term safety eventually. The question at hand is very easily quantifiable and qualifiable: are mRNA vaccines safe in the long term and relative to the risks of the afflictions they target? The current answer is: there is no evidence supporting that they are, therefore the reasonable, rational, and scientific thing to do is maintain the baseline until sufficient evidence exists.
Yeah maybe something can go wrong in 20 years in one person. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing that we don't know what could go wrong or what the probability something can go wrong is in the long term because the data literally just doesn't exist you're trying to argue that we should just assume that the probability of something going wrong is already established as infinitesimally small. That's irrational and antiscientific. It's not established at all that's my entire point. The data will exist eventually, we are not stuck in this permanent state of ignorance.
Yeah, but we also don’t know the long-term risks of HDTVs, VR headsets, CBD oil or Impossible burgers. Not knowing the long-term risks of a product is exceedingly common.
> you're trying to argue that we should just assume that the probability of something going wrong is already established as infinitesimally small.
Not at all. I’m saying that you have to encounter this problem nearly every day. And that if you were consistently concerned about abstract, undefined, unknown potential risks that you had no knowledge or understanding of then you would not participate in any new medicine, technology or activities and I just don’t know of anyone that follows that philosophy consistently. So that’s why I’m not buying that 0 long-term data is the only reason or even the main reason someone wouldn’t take the vaccine.
A chocolate bar from a brand new chocolate company at the grocery store is familiar and easy to understand. No one studied the long-term effects of this substance you’re about to put into your body (because it was just released this month), but we assume that the ingredients are correct, we assume that we understand the effects the ingredients will have on us, we assume that someone inspected the facility for cleanliness and we assume that it was delivered to the store and stocked without being tampered with. The long-term data for this particular bar of chocolate for this new brand doesn’t exist, but you don’t care and don’t think twice about consuming it. So, that’s why I don’t think it’s about the data at all, I think it has more to do with our assumed individual knowledge of the product, the production process and the quality control (or when lacking that, our willingness to trust the relevant parties).
Even if you get long-term data, it’s a no-win scenario if you’re were never looking for anything specific in the first place. You had no hypothesis, no argument and designed no experiment.
Let’s say 2030 roles around and they announce: “No long-term negative effects!” Well, why would I believe that? My area of concern was infinitely broad. You can’t test to infinity, so you’ll never satisfy my doubts. There might still be negative effects coming in 10 years, or maybe you messed up in the data collection, or are just plain lying to me, how would I know? Why would I trust you? Only if I approach the problem with a specific, testable concern can I ever get reassurance that my concerns have been addressed.
It makes a lot more sense to me to say: I’m concerned about mRNA vaccines because Dr. X expressed concerns about Y. And then wait for that specific concern to be addressed.
> The data will exist eventually, we are not stuck in this permanent state of ignorance.
Only because people got the vaccine and didn’t wait for long-term data. That’s why this philosophy can never be adopted by a significant portion of the population, because it’s self-defeating. The moment you convince everyone that it’s smarter to wait for long-term data, you lose the ability to obtain that very data you want.
All your examples have comparable or well studied technologies and preexisting science behind them. None of them have zero comparable long term data. HDTVs and VR are built on well understood technology, CBD oil, Impossible Burgers, Chocolate bars are built on well understood food chemistries. None of them come even close to the risks imparted by direct health intervention that has failed animal trials repeatedly.
>You had no hypothesis, no argument and designed no experiment.
I've literally explicitly stated it several times. If you choose to ignore it, that's a personal problem.
>The moment you convince everyone that it’s smarter to wait for long-term data, you lose the ability to obtain that very data you want
lol no you don't, you just do actual science and studies/trials while not fear mongering the population into authoritarian complacency over unstudied medical interventions that have not mitigated excess deaths at all.
Exactly, and that's why I listed them. The 0 long-term data part and interaction with novel technology is so commonplace in everyday life, it isn't the core issue and IMO, it's a byproduct of some other concern. The core issue for many people is 0 long-term data + [something]. The [something] is interesting. Here you identify "novel medical intervention both in mechanism and function" as the [something]. That [something] can be researched online, debated, etc. My guess is that if you had 0 concern over how mRNA vaccines work (like you had 0 concern over cellphone radiation), you wouldn't still be waiting on long-term data. Using your earlier example, it's like saying "I have 0 concern that cellphones produce harmful radiation, but I still want to wait for long-term data before using this new technology because long-term data is the most important thing in my decision making process." No one does that. They focus on the radiation, because that's what matters, and once they're comfortable with that concrete, specific concern they make an informed decision.
The 0 long-term data is a concern we overcome everyday without much hesitation. The fact that CBD oils have well understood food chemistries ignores the fact that their largely unregulated production process, quantity of application and internal/external application processes in combination with an infinite number of genetic or medical pre-conditions or other substances like over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, etc. could have an unstudied long-term effect. We have 0 long-term data on this and no one cares, because in the "0 long-term data + [something]" equation, if there's no [something], no one cares about the 0 long-term data part of the equation.
> the risks imparted by direct health intervention that has failed animal trials repeatedly
OK, now we're getting more detail. Now you can research and debate this more specific concern.
> you just do actual science and studies/trials
You could simulate it in the lab or animals all you want, but you need to study a large sample size of people over long periods of time to see any long-term effects in humans. That means in order for this "wait and see" philosophy to work for you, you need a large number of people to disagree with it.
> not fear mongering the population into authoritarian complacency over unstudied medical interventions that have not mitigated excess deaths at all
And more specific concerns. This is the heart of it IMO. Now you can have a conversation.
When you refuse to have a conversation or make a decision until you have robust long-term data, you're creating an impossible hurdle that you yourself can't possibly adhere to consistently with every new technology, medicine or medical procedure.
This is like the inverse of Pascal's Wager [1]!
"What if taking some action results in negative long term effects that we don't yet know about? Better not do anything new just to be safe."
That reasoning could be applied to anything novel, and yet folks seem most ready to apply it to COVID-19 vaccination. The flu vaccine changes every year, but I've never heard folks expressing concern of the long-term effects of this year's new formulation. Let me rattle off a few more off the top of my head:
* Was there a large cohort of the population that refused microwave ovens in the 1970's?
* What if a doctor prescribes you a new medication that was developed in the last 5-10 years?
* VR headsets?
* Social media!
* Sitting at a desk in front of a computer working 8 hours a day
* Getting a smartphone
Is there some reason why we would expect a priori for the COVID-19 vaccine to have a particularly high risk of adverse affects that only show up long-term?
The correct question is, is there sufficient evidence that we shouldn't? You don't ever assume the confirmation of a hypothesis (in this case long term safety) when introducing something novel. That's the exact opposite of science.
My answer is: I believe in science, empirical evidence, and hypothesis testing. I'm not going to assume the hypothesis that they're safe long term is correct without empirical evidence. You don't disrupt baseline systems with something novel on the basis of faith when no empirical evidence exists. That's completely antithetical to science.
It's funny because most of your examples are great illustrations that assuming novel things are safe has disastrous consequences.
But what I’m pointing out above is the contradiction of how most of the folks worried about long term effects (and I have no idea whether this includes you specifically) seem to selectively apply this behavior strategy to only the COVID vaccine! And I personally think that one would miss out on a lot that is good and enjoyable in life by applying that strategy consistently across all decisions, but to each his own.
But for average folks that apply this caution to the Covid vaccine, I am highly skeptical that they are also applying it to all many other things in their life that could have equally high or even greater risk. (Which is why I intentionally included examples of behaviors that we know to have long term negative consequences.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29885809
Completely novel direct health interventions are in no way comparable to technological advances built on well understood foundations and methodologies for which a wealth of data exists.
Sure the process used for this particular vaccine was novel, but do you think it’s mechanism of action is so fundamentally different from other vaccines such that it is likely to have fundamentally different long-term outcomes?
It really is. Its mechanism of action is completely new and involves cell alterations and inducing protein synthesis that has never been done before and for which no long term data exists.
>Sure the process used for this particular vaccine was novel, but do you think it’s mechanism of action is so fundamentally different from other vaccines such that it is likely to have fundamentally different long-term outcomes?
I don't know, maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. The data proving otherwise doesn't exist. That's why I'm going to wait for the actual science to be done.
Which specific scientific evidence would you accept to change your opinion on this matter?
It's not a new formulation every year. They pick a few from a preexisting set of vaccines to try and get a best match to the strains they expect to be most prevalent in the coming flu season.
For the second part, being generous, you could say that the point of a vaccine is to modify your immune cells but it's more likely it was unfounded paranoia.
> “There is absolutely no reason to believe that any of the vaccine mRNA is doing the same thing. The viral spike protein mRNA is a tiny piece. Vaccines are not inducing LINE element RTs,” said Young. “Vaccines are protecting against the possibility of long-term seriously debilitating diseases or death.”
So yes, you are spreading anti-vax conspiracy theories. And this is why misinformation is treated as dangerous. It takes too much time and effort to repair the damage caused by this insane drivel.
(Also, other readers should note that OP edited his comment after my reply to remove the DNA modification boogeyman, although he seems to have doubled-down on it...)
There's nothing conspiratorial about wanting to do science to explore unknowns consequences of known potential outcome. I'm done entertaining respect for folks that claim otherwise. It's bad faith and just generally being an asshole. They can take it if they're gonna dish it out
From a positive/factual perspective, speaking like you have will get you downvoted, flagged, and maybe even banned (it's unusual but it does happen) from HN. You're taking an unpopular position in a rude way and people don't like that. Adjusting the way you speak will get people to at least read and consider your points (if I see rude language in a comment that I'm inclined to disagree with already, my brain shuts off quick).
From a normative perspective, I believe that even people who refer to others as conspiracy theorists are worthy of respect - I'm a Christian and so I believe that all humans are made in God's image, including the ones that I vehemently disagree with, or the ones that try to silence my voice.
Again, I agree with a lot of the points you're making, and I want more people to see them, so please please please consider changing the approach you take on HN.
It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away.
That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a foreseeable future. Well, one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.
We’re not going to be done with vaccines and mandates. And that does not have to be a big deal. I have had to prove vaccination status of my kid for schools and camps for years. It’s annoying but not any harder than keeping my car registration up to date or any other minor bureaucratic headache.
I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer. They were going to give up a good salary, great benefits, and a stable career because they were “so over COVID.” That is what failing the marshmallow test looks like.