It's incorrect though. It's not a matter of opinion that populations with higher vaccination rates saw fewer deaths and lower rates of hospitalization.

This is completely false. Areas of the world with much lower vaccination rates like India and especially Africa has much lower death rates from COVID than Western countries with much higher rates of vaccination.

During the pandemic, the media was talking about how much death there would be in these under-vaccinated countries, and then it turned out their death rates were much lower.

Are you aware that places with poor resources and low/no record keeping have all sorts of crazy statistics?

Obviously when doing analysis we wanted to compare solid data with solid data. Not some NGO worker asking the tribal medicine man how many COVID deaths they have had..."6 witchcraft deaths, 4 bad spirits, and 3 might have been coughing?".

India had the second highest number of cases and the third highest number of deaths.

And that's before you start taking into account the terrible record tracking and lack of testing.

What is incorrect? This is what he said: "And they were rushed out, and many people still sit with the issues they caused. Not a win - at the very least, they reduced the confidence of average people in vaccines and gave credence to the anti-vaxxers. Well done."

So, let's break that down.

1. Were they rushed out? I think we can all agree that yes, they were rushed out and sped up beyond what we had seen typically.

2. Many people still sit with the issues they caused? I think we can all agree that yes, there were side effects that they didn't let us know about or didn't know about themselves. So, I think some people (maybe young, healthy people especially) wish they hadn't been forced to take the vaccine. I think this is likely... but even if you don't, you can't state that it's a fact that it's untrue.

3. Your statement now, that populations with higher vaccination rates saw fewer deaths and hospitalizations? Yes, I think I can agree with that. That has nothing to do with points 1 and 2 above though. It doesn't invalidate either above point, and it won't invalidate point #4 below.

4. At the very least, they reduced the confidence of average people in vaccines and gave creedence to the anti-vaxxers - not a win? -- I can agree with the above statement as well. Given I believe that all of the above are true, this statement is still true. It's not a win long term to have abused the process (even if the net was a positive) and hide information from people and you can't blame those people for now having doubts or reservations.

I think all of the above can be true at the same time. Just my 2c.

1. Moderna had a vaccine in January 2020. Its not 1950 anymore where development takes 10 years. Doing faux work to waste time to placate ludite observers who can only equate time to quality is dumb.

2. People have died because they were wearing a seatbelt, and people have lived because they weren't. Do you still buckle yours? Why does this logic make sense to you but "vaccine greatly reduces adverse outcomes in all populations" doesn't?

Debatable. For one, many people believed the stats were cooked. Hospitals had financial incentives to claim corona cases. They routinely didn't test people for corona if they were vaccinated during the worst part of the outbreak.

Even Pfizer's own trial data submitted to the FDA showed an all-cause mortality higher in the control group than the product group. Of course, they explain all the deaths away.

That's allowed according to pg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

What's discouraged is complaining about downvotes.

On the contrary, I'd prefer to see fewer content-free assertions of grievance on HN. That's something I see way too often.