My biggest concern now is around seeing those who hedged their willingness to get the vaccine on its approval instead find a new reason not to get it.
So with that in mind, I'm much more keen on seeing how employers will decide on vaccination mandates now that at least one vaccine is fully approved. Any news yet on whether any more employers are likely implementing mandates (if they haven't already this morning) based on the news? Guessing a few probably had their policies and news pre-written in anticipation.
I guess the US military can now mandate it as they've said they will. Time to see how many of the people posting on social media that they'd rather take a dishonorable discharge will follow through.
It's more likely that people eligible for retirement will take it earlier than they originally planned. That's basically what we're seeing in return to office attrition.
For me to agree with "vanishingly small", I should rarely encounter a vaccination requirement in my day to day life. The wishlist for places and activities that will require verification is so large I will be encountering them multiple times a day, for the rest of my life.
Yes, and that's perfectly fine because 1. you've been accepting that for other vaccines already and 2. there is no cost or significant risk to you from getting vaccinated, mostly just massive benefits. It's a win-win situation. Society is asking you to take 1 hour of your time to save your own life.
The fact that some people don't recognize that gift as what it is because they've been misinformed is irrelevant because, well, whatever they believe is simply not true.
No, not really. I've lived in states where vaccines were required to enter grade school, but there were religious and conscience exemptions. And flu shots are often required in health care. That status quo was far less invasive than what is being proposed here. I have never had to prove vaccination status to just do ordinary things in my life before.
I’m pro vaccine, but requiring I take a test or prove my trustworthiness strike me as fundamentally different than requiring I inject something in my body.
In this scenario, you're seeking a job for which a clearance is a prerequisite.
In this world, people with jobs are being fired for not getting vaccinated. It's not a small cohort either; it's the government and giant corporate entities.
There are a few notable exceptions, though, of employers that are not mandating vaccination. Pfizer, for one. The White House, for another. When the pharma that makes the thing, and the POTUS, who is making vaccination priority #1, don't require it, that is some laughably awful PR.
> The White House didn’t even establish a vaccine mandate for its own staffers until last month, despite the shot being available to them early in the year.
If the government said that unvaccinated individuals were not allowed to purchase food, would you consider that OK, because they're not forcing you to stop eating?
They can't legally force you, so they're using other means to exert as much pressure as possible. Doesn't feel any better to a lot of people to know they weren't technically forced.
You can’t drive a car without a license for the same reason: unlicensed drivers kill people at higher rates. Just like unvaccinated people kill others at higher rates.
That's great if you've got a vehicle and/or can pay the extra cost for delivery. The urban groups statistically most likely to be unvaccinated (blacks and hispanics) are also those statistically least likely to have a vehicle or be able to pay for delivery.
This discussion would only be relevant if there was any downside or personal cost to the obvious solution, which is to just get the damn vaccine.
Apart from facing one's cognitive dissonance, fears and ignorance, there is none. Just overwhelming benefits. It's perfectly okay for society to require it.
They also compel you to do things such as wear clothes and shoes in order to get service.
If you want to take part in exchange, you must do it in terms acceptable to both parties. You are not entitled to take from society on whatever terms you dictate on your own.
I live in a major city and I have never even heard of requiring vaccinations to buy groceries. Is this a thing that exists somewhere? I would love to read more on this.
The government often is compelling people to in areas where basic safety precautions are not required in public spaces.
In nearly all other aspects of life, inflicting harm on others results in some sort of liability. Unsafe activities are regulated. However, in this time of massive death, massive hospitalization, massive long term health complications, basic safety is being thrown out the window to appease political tribalism.
There are literal quotes from governors, senators, and Congressional representatives talking about herd via infection. Suggesting seniors should do their part and die in order to save the economy.
Depending on where you live and who your political alignment is, the government is absolutely compelling you to get COVID.
More like being inundated by smoke. My town is currently experiencing intermittent days of smokiness from fires burning 100s of miles away. People are dying in those fires. Homes are being destroyed.
But the local fire department isn't doing anything about it. Nobody around here is installing sprinklers as a precaution. They act like there is no fire at all.
Covid is a serious thing. But "engulfed by flames" is the exact overstatement that causes people to question the motivation of fear-mongers.
I'm vaccinated. I wear a mask. I think too many people are whipping up a frenzy for profit. Why don't we lockdown our highways when there are 600,000 deaths from auto accidents? Why not lockdown breweries when there are 2 million drunk-driving incidents? Why isn't there a frenzy over influenza?
Covid frenzy has a better marketing campaign. It's the kind of thing that has people claiming we are "engulfed by flames" when things get smoky.
> Why don't we lockdown our highways when there are 600,000 deaths from auto accidents?
We mandate seat belts, air bags, guard rails, road construction standards, backup cameras, crumple zones, and quite a few other elements involved in road safety. Per-mile road deaths have been on a precipitous decline for decades due to ongoing increases in safety mandates.
Whats crazy is people have already forgotten that we had large outbreaks and hospitals overrun. The hospitals were way over capacity with the sick. Covid is not a normal problem.
I don't know about the US, but every country that has winter has hospitals "overrun" with flu every year and never such authoritarian measures were taken.
> What deserves such incredible non-stop daily attention? Answer: whatever makes the most money.
I think initially the correct answer in the case of COVID-19 was more specifically: whatever endangers existing profits most. The whole situation spelled uncertainty at the beginning, and that's bad for everything where "business as usual" is highly profitable. The rushed response and large scale mismanagement this caused is what brought into existence the "never let a crisis go to waste" part that came after.
According to this table [1], we spent about double on coronavirus public funding in 2020 as we do _every_ year for diabetes. As an emergent situation with potential for much more death, that seems proportional.
Also, according to [2], "The majority of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes." So the majority of deaths are possibly preventable, which sounds familiar to the debate around COVID.
Finally, to suggest diabetes and coronaviruses are at all the same is an ignorant statement. It's not like _nobody_ cares about diabetes. It just happens to be its own tough nut to crack. What have you contributed to the body of knowledge about it?
> What deserves such incredible non-stop daily attention? Answer: whatever makes the most money.
Indeed. This is why I strictly limit my news consumption, but it's not completely useless. I scan for trends and dig into sources and details. The stuff I linked in this comment took me all of 5 minutes to find with Internet searches.
well there are legal consequences of causing or being part of an accident, unlike spreading COVID or Influenza. So we don't consider road deaths okay by nearly any metric. If you want to call out bad comparisons your position should be included in that. Not only do we put tons of safety precautions in place on the road, people get in serious trouble when they have been negligent. And we also have tons of companies currently trying to remove the human driver error from the equation entirely.
The idea of conflating other causes of death with COVID is just perfection over progress. Sure there are other systems that aren't perfect but that doesn't mean COVID isn't worth addressing.
You nailed it on the head. The fear mongering is absurd, and largely money driven. I would think we suffer many many more deaths from diabetes than 1.5 million/year. Of course, if you die in the hospital from diabetes complications with Covid, you get counted as a "covid death". :-/
My wife is a children's ER doctor. They are now seeing all patients up to 25 because the adult ER can't handle the number of COVID patients. The pediatric ICU is also now full (in contrast to the earlier COVID waves were virtually no children required treatment).
She's never had to do that because of a bad flu season. More than 90% of the adults in the hospital for COVID and 100% of the kids are unvaccinated.
People wouldn't even be discussing shutting down schools and businesses to get this under control if we had a 90% vaccination rate.
If COVID was like getting engulfed by flames for children, you can be damn sure we'd be jabbing them. Why aren't we? Because it's way more context sensitive than the analogy permits, so it's a particularly useless analogy.
My brother had that (quite legitimate, really) concern. So he delayed vaccination. Now he has Covid. Doctors talking of amputating his toes because of blood clots. Death is not the worst thing to be feared in this.
Anecdotally, I know someone who got the vaccine, and dropped to the ground of a heart attack 3 days later - no prior history of any heart issues or hypertension. Thankfully, he was near an EMT unit that had to bring him back.
As someone who has had both COVID (before vaccines were available) and a COVID vaccine, this reasoning seems frankly dumb as bricks.
There is uncertainty about long-term effects of both. There is no uncertainty about the short-term effects of COVID, which are magnitudes worse than the short-term effects of a vaccine. COVID for me was a multi-week flu that scared the shit out of me because I didn't know how bad it would get or if I'd live through it. I took months to get my smell/taste back, three months to get back to previous fitness levels, hair loss, and significant mental fog and memory problems. The jab was one day of tiredness and I ran a marathon two days after no problem.
I really can't fathom how anyone could put themselves and those around them at such great risk, rather than taking a vaccine.
sadly there are at least a few percentage points of people where that's basically the reason: they're dumb. I'm sorry, but it's true. Nonetheless, social media and other beneficiaries of fear mongering, definitely make this problem a lot worse than it would be without them.
I have a lot of trouble arguing with these people (friends, family) because I read daily about how bad covid is and they are simply ignorant. For some of them it's basically "he said, she said" (so like: who should I trust?) as if anti-vaxxers and science are on the same level of trustworthiness. And also when you talk about data they say something like "I don't trust the data" and rather trust some stupid people in their social circle. Also it appears like they feel like "vaccination can be bad", "covid can be bad (but not necessarily, my daughter had it and it was like the flu!)", so they rather try to avoid both. Yeah, logic...
Thats your personal experience. Most of my friends who got covid without the vaccines never had any major issue you had. They took rest for a week and problem solved. One of my other friends, who was vaccinated, got covid and had to be hospitalised because he couldn't breath. Luckily he survived. A coworker, who was vaccinated, still hasn't got his taste back after getting covid around a month ago.
Vaccine or not, you can still get covid and suffer the consequences depending on your body. So I dont see the point in getting a vaccine and suffer its long term consequences when it basically does nothing.
If you are saying it prevents covid death - you are wrong. Check England's data. More unvaccinated people are getting covid but they are dying less. Vaccinated people are getting covid less but the ones who died after getting covid are more. The math isn't adding up for the vaccines.
You seem happy to be countering his personal experience with your own personal experience, and jump to the conclusion that there's no difference (wrong) and the vaccine does nothing (wrong) so why bother risking long term consequences (there's zero reason to think there's any from vaccines, while there are reasons to think there are many from Covid)
If only there was a way to objectively assess these things... Oh wait there is, it's called "doing a randomized controlled trial on more than 3 people" and "numerous observational studies from real world data"
And guess what ? From this data, you're 90% less likely to get severely ill and 95% less likely to die if you've been vaccinated, even with Delta.
> If you are saying it prevents covid death - you are wrong. Check England's data.
No he's right. Still about 95% protection against death from Delta.
> More unvaccinated people are getting covid but they are dying less.
Wrong.
> Vaccinated people are getting covid less but the ones who died after getting covid are more.
Still wrong.
Unless you've been comparing vaccinated 80 year olds with unvaccinated 20 year olds maybe ?
The great thing about that excuse is that the amount of information needed can be set arbitrarily. There will never be enough information available to satisfy people using this excuse. It'll just be "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER"[1] until the end of time.
I agree in general. The difference here is that the quote about longterm effects being unknown is from the FDA. A layperson could set their standard as being when the FDA has that information. Hopefully the FDA has objective procedures and measure to make those determinations. I feel that would be a reasonable approach.
Take a closer look at the mortality rate from COVID, and then take a closer look at which pre-existing conditions people who are being hospitalized largely have (all easily found on CDC's network of reporting hospitals, at least for the US). It would appear based on these data points, that the vast majority of people have nothing to fear, neither death or hospitalization. However, if you're in the growing minority of folks with chronic obesity, hypertension, and diabetes (the "holy trinity" as my ER-doc friend says), you might want to get a vaccine, but understand the effectiveness will be severely lowered by your conditions.
Just speaking my lived experience homie. Most of my family and friends are RNs, many of which, have various chronic issues due to work-related mandatory yearly vaccinations. Their cases are facts backed by practicing virologists.
Some of your linked comment was valid but your "negative natural selection" take was just nonsense. Superbugs have nothing at all to do with vaccinations. It's the result of overly zealous use of antibiotics that gets cut before the point of complete pathogen destruction.
There are also sufficient rates of infection of even healthy subjects to warrant concern considering that Covid cases are far more serious than most Flu cases - another illness that affects the healthy far less but can still lead to hospitalisation or even death. Also, before you mention it, the fact that there are more deaths caused by the Flu than Covid statistically per year is due to the greater proliferation of the Flu virus and it's variants over Covid.
On an individual basis, you are far more likely to develop complications from Covid than Flu, even for healthy subjects.
> ..."negative natural selection" take was just nonsense
You're misquoting me. What I said was "negative selection". My belief is, we need to let the immune systems of humans do what they're designed to do, and stop artificially selecting all humans to live for as long as possible, without regard for the quality of that life. Effectively, we need to live, die, and decay in a much more natural way, just like the plants and animals under my care do. Nothing healthy or positive, from a long-term genetic-health perspective, has ever come from me rescuing a feeble lamb, and bottle feeding it, medicating it, throughout most of its life. In fact, only the opposite happens. But I understand, most humans tend to only value today instead of 30-40 years down the road.
>Superbugs have nothing at all to do with vaccinations.
You're getting tunnel vision'ed. Superbugs have been created by chemicals being sprayed onto fields, for no longer than 30-40 years. Superbugs have been created or emboldened by broad spectrum sanitization.
>On an individual basis, you are far more likely to develop complications from Covid than Flu, even for healthy subjects.
Maybe; though this seems largely a function of time at this point seeing how its been such a short time since Covid's been around. However, the likelihood of "complications" due to Covid is slim to none, on an individual basis, especially for healthy folks (according to the CDC.gov data, assuming our census numbers are correct'ish).
Concern? Why? The virus is under control in countries where the vaccine rollout has been swift. Why do you sound so keen to force something on people that they don't want, regardless of their reasons? Shouldn't people have the right to choose what they take? If people can lose their jobs over it then clearly they don't have that right - that's a form of coercion/blackmail.
I think the focus on a small minority of people who don't want to take a vaccine is unhealthy.
> Shouldn't people have the right to choose what they take?
It's not this simple. Not taking a vaccine during a pandemic has negative externalities, since you're increasing the risk of infection and death of those you interact with, you increase the likelihood of consuming scarce resources (such as ICU beds), etc.
I largely agree with you, but framing it as a simple "individual choice" issue is reductive at best.
1. Those who are vaccinated have a significant reduction in risk of death (not to mention that the risk is very minute for young people anyway), so that's a moot point
2. Some vaccinated people have been found to carry the same levels of the virus as unvaccinated people, so stating that unvaccinated people could be increasing risk to others is also a moot point
3. Once the so called "R" rate is below one, the virus is on a path to fizzling out
It's not as though unvaccinated people will be dying in their thousands for centuries to come. Herd immunity just needs to kick in which many countries have already achieved.
> Some vaccinated people have been found to carry the same levels of the virus as unvaccinated people, so stating that unvaccinated people could be increasing risk to others is also a moot point
Some is in this case a small minority. In general you have the same level up to about day 5, then vaccinated drops down to zero over the next few days while vaccinated levels keep raising for several more days.
No, I'm not saying anything about whether vaccines should be mandatory or not. Whatever your beliefs, you should be taking these externalities into account. I think there are reasonable, good faith arguments for both voluntary and involuntary vaccination, that still account for these negative externalities--pretending they don't exist does nobody any favors, and we should disregard arguments that ignore them.
It's socially irresponsible and the impact to others is possible death. I wouldn't have a problem if these people weren't spreading death to others, but instead, they choose to force themselves on the rest of us because "freedom". The same people that don't understand vaccines are also likely to think masks don't work, so they take zero precautions when it comes to their safety and others.
The focus is just, these folks are robbing everyone else of their freedom and happiness.
Please see my other reply. Vaccinated people have a significantly reduced risk of death, so there is virtually no risk from being exposed to those without a vaccination.
>The same people that don't understand vaccines are also likely to think masks don't work
I don't see how this is relevant. It just seems like a strawman argument to dismiss people who might have legitimate reasons for not having the vaccine or otherwise just want to exercise their right not to have it.
Cool story, the facts however show unvaccinated people are filling up hospitals and children under 12 which account for approx 75 million people or approx 20%+ of the population in the US are now being impacted and they're not eligible for vaccination.
being obese is socially irresponsible in these times, yet I don't see obese people banned from buying junk food and going to eat junk food in restaurants
but they are overloading hospitals denying access to healthcare to other sick people since gov around world decided to prioritize this hyped disease
for instance in Czechia there were 17K excess deaths, 10K with main cause COVID, the other 7K thanks to restrictions and doctors treating people over phone to keep hospitals empty for obese/old
Because getting COVID becomes a problem for every person you come in contact with! Getting vaccinated protects you first, but also stops you from personally handing a disease to everyone you're in contact with. The people around you shouldn't be punished because you like Fox News.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, is a huge rising conservative star in the style of Trump. She's downright anti-vaccine. "These vaccines are failing and do not reduce the spread of the virus and neither do masks".
Well, that statement of hers is blatantly stupid, I think we can agree on that.
But please don't lump people like me concerned about infringement on rights and bodily autonomy with people who deny facts and cannot understand what a mitigation measure is.
And more importantly, please don't make vaccination a political issue. Because you will be dividing everyone over this much more dramatically.
I would love for vaccination to not be a political issue, it's just the sad truth. The vaccination rate is deeply coordinated with the Democratic voting rate.
I would love to see some statistical data on this topic. Anecdotal observation is that vaccinated people becoming more careless with masks and social distancing. See also Britain and Israel latest waves almost the same magnitude as January waves (but, of course, much less deadly).
No, getting vaccinated is not stops anyone from transmitting disease, it is obvious. Virus gets to breathing system of vaccinated people same as for unvaccinated, and replicates there for 4-6 days. Then they either have a vaccine breakthrough, or vaccine-boosted immune system kicks in and defeats the virus in next 2-3 days. All this time the vaccinated host is as dangerous for others as unvaccinated.
I hope you didn't know it or didn't think it through, otherwise mention of Fox News seems to me a blatant hypocrisy. Either way it was an unnecessary ad hominem attack.
> Ct-values decreased throughout the first 3 days of illness.
Days of illness are those 3 days "when immune system kicks in and defeats the virus", as I wrote. When host is ill, it is obvious and things like masks and social distancing are being used. But not for those 4-6 days of asymptomatic virus replication, when most transmissions are taking part.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen more from health insurers - unless they’re gambling on being able to get out of paying for any long term care costs for COVID complications by claiming ‘preexisting condition’ or ‘government said they’d pay for COVID treatment’ they should surely be interested in incentivizing group plan holders (ie employers) to have vaccination programs. When having a vaccination mandate policy shows up as an actual tangible cut in your insurance bill, that will drive some real behavior changes in employers.
On the contrary with the insurance profits capped at a percentage it is beneficial for them for the services to be as expensive as possible and patients to have as many as possible claims.
They can just pass on the cost onto the consumer and raise their profits.
This approval doesn't change a thing, about no known long term effects of viral vector vaccines (first time approved by any medical agency in world in November 2019) and mRNA vaccines (first time approved by any medical agency in world in December 2020).
Sorry for not wanting to inject myself with unproven technology with unknown long term effects. Why politicians and certain pharma companies keep pushing these vaccines instead offering conventional inactivated virus vaccines? Heck maybe I'd go even for protein based one (Novavax).
As healthy non-obese non-smoking relatively young person I'm not afraid of COVID, but I'd be willing to take safe vaccine with technology proven by decades of track record to make some people happy (though ideally everyone should have same rights vaxxed or unvaxxed and this should be entirely voluntary same as influenza, hepatitis and other vaccines nobody requires when you travel to neighboring country or visit restaurant).
For instance these are currently my options in EU, if I want conventional vaccine against COVID approved by EMA or any COVID vaccine using any technology approved more than 2 years ago:
EDIT: I wonder if all those people defending these new technoloy vaccines also use all their software running Alpha/Beta versions and don't wait for Stable version. But it seems when it comes to one's own health it's less important than software for most.
To be fair, we've been shooting mRNA into people for medical research since about 1992. Early attempts were for gene therapy, but the approach has been abandoned because the mRNA breaks down so quickly. Beyond that, the mRNA is telling your cell to produce structural proteins. We've been using structural proteins in vaccines for AGES. Random bits of structural proteins are circulation around your body, being broken down, recycled, and eliminated as waste all of the time. There's no reason to believe that this structural protein is dangerous by itself.
I can't figure out what these vaccines do that could even have long term effects beyond getting your immune system to recognize the protein.
You're refusing the "beta" (installed by billions of users) version of something that can save your life because you (mistakenly) believe the choice is between that, and staying as you were before.
It's not. That's no longer true with the Delta variant.
Now it's really a choice between "carefully designed, just officially declared stable" vaccine with billions of users vs getting the "totally unstable, totally doesn't care about your health, completely unknown long term effects" SARS-CoV-2 virus forcefully installed on you.
You will get antibodies one way or another, and there is orders of magnitude more risk and uncertainty associated with getting them through infection rather than controlled vaccination.
Furthermore, there has never been in history any vaccine side effect that occurred later than a few weeks after administration at most.
There is just no theoretical basis for why anything wrong would happen here.
Are you demanding 100% certainty ? Sure, you won't get it here but you also didn't get it with anything else you ever did in medicine and you can live with that.
With Delta, ICUs (and even more so long covid clinics) are full of unvaccinated "healthy non obese non smoking relatively young" guys like you.
If you're not afraid of Covid, rationally you should be even less afraid of getting a vaccine.
To put things in perspective, here are the odds in young males for the most talked about vaccine side effect (myocarditis, which usually resolves in a few days), vs the odds of getting severe Covid at your age :
This is the expert consensus based on everything they know about how immunity and mRNA works.
It's kind of hard to give you one single source, simply because it's hard to demonstrate the absence of something. What usually happens instead is that somebody with specific concerns raises them and explains the plausible mechanism they see as problematic, then it's either debunked immediately as BS or if the theory has legs, it's supported by other scientists and put the test.
I mean, you can't technically rule out somebody coming up with a revolutionary theory that changes our understanding of immunity like Einstein did for physics, but there is no sign of that, no theoretical basis for trouble, and the vaccine is saving lives in the meantime
>Also, what about people who have antibodies from prior infection with covid?
Research is moving fast on this, but AFAIK the consensus is that prior symptomatic infection gives longer lasting but also less broad (against different variants) immunity compared to an mRNA vaccine.
The best protection seems to be in people with prior infection + 1 shot of mRNA vaccine (of course, that does not imply one should try to get infected then vaccinated, because the risk of damage from that first infection vastly outweighs the benefit of a slightly better immunity if you pulled through unscathed, then got vaccinated)
"Clinical studies from Israel, the Cleveland Clinic, England and elsewhere have demonstrated beyond a doubt that natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 provides robust and durable protection against reinfection comparable to or better than that provided by the most effective vaccines." source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-mandate-natural-immunit...
(Referenced studies are linked in the article).
Why should people who already have antibodies take marginal unnecessary risk for no gain?
To further support your argument, we are on the verge legal precedent that it is unconstitutional for public institutions (e.g. public universities) to mandate vaccination - and predicate employment on it - for people who already have antibodies acquired through natural infection [1].
> Prof. Zywicki’s immunologist, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm, has advised him that, based on his personal health and immunity status, it is medically unnecessary to get a Covid-19 vaccine — and that it violates medical ethics to order unnecessary procedures.
> the Policy is unmistakably coercive and cannot reasonably be considered anything other than an unlawful mandate. And even if the Policy is not deemed coercive, it still represents an unconstitutional condition being applied to Professor Zywicki’s constitutional rights to bodily integrity and informed medical choice, respectively.
> GMU’s Policy infringes upon Professor Zywicki’s rights under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution
Also, we do not yet have a good idea about the real world levels of reduction in "death/hospitalization/severe illness". Currently, in the United States, known deaths from Covid19 among people stands at "eight point seven per million fully vaccinated" (aka, 8.7/million) and has been steadily increasing since April[1,2].
Hospitalizations from Covid19 among the fully vaccinated stands at "thirty six per million fully vaccinated" and steadily increasing.
Since both outcomes come at the end of a process (get vaccinated -> get exposed to the virus -> get an infection -> require a hospital visit -> die from illness), there is naturally at least five or weeks lags between someone completing the full vaccination schedule and the hospitalization/death outcome occurring.
Given that about half the full vaccinations in the U.S. happened since April and given that the consensus seems to be that vaccine conferred protection lasts about 6-8 months, I would not expect the "deaths from Covid19 per million fully vaccinated against Covid19" to stabilize until October.
In the mean time, the unvaccinated will either have to submit or driven into the shadows with the current policies. Pretty soon, it will be a miracle to find anyone whose natural immune response without vaccination can be measured/tested at all.
As long as the data continues to indicate that prior infection provides equivalent protection and that prior infection is verifiable then that seems like that should be a valid exception to a vaccination requirement. The verification is key though, it seems like everyone who got a cold in 2020 _thinks_ they had Covid.
WSJ editorials also endorsed taking horse dewormer as a COVID cure. Favorable coverage by a political ally of an activity filing a lawsuit is not to be confused with a scientific consensus
“Among Kentucky residents infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020, vaccination status of those reinfected during May–June 2021 was compared with that of residents who were not reinfected. In this case-control study, being unvaccinated was associated with 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with being fully vaccinated.”
I agree that people need to stop linking to news and media articles.
While it might be fair to challenge the credibility of WSJ, you should know that the CDC study you cited had a relatively small sample size and was limited to a small geographic area over a 2 month period. Recent large scale multicentre studies with ~100x more participants have provided strong counter evidence that natural infection confers highly effective protection [3].
> A previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an 84% lower risk of infection, with median protective effect observed 7 months following primary infection. This time period is the minimum probable effect because seroconversions were not included. This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals. [3]
For reference here's high quality publications supporting GP's claim that natural infection provides robust and durable immunity that is at least as protective as vaccination [1][2][3][4].
[3] SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/
Vaccinations are most effective if we reach herd immunity, which requires others to get vaccinated. The safety is not “perceived”, it’s scientifically verified by tracking hospitalization and death rates as it’s been rolled out at a global scale. The reason herd immunity is so important is that those that are immunocompromised _cannot_ safely get a vaccination and thus rely on there being enough vaccinated individuals to reduce the chance of catching it. Further, by many choosing to remain unvaccinated and allowing the virus to continue evolving we greatly increase risk it mutates into something the current vaccine cannot prevent.
Unfortunately, with Delta variant transmission rate and vaccine breakthrough probability, and the fact that no vaccine yet has a sterilization effect, we will not reach herd immunity. This is a done deal. Let's work on alternative strategy.
Delta has won this particular battle but not the war.
The existing mRNA vaccines were pretty close to having a sterilizing effect (unexpected and very good surprise) on the previous variants.
There is still hope that the Delta-specific updates (Moderna is already testing theirs) will restore that level of efficacy, and there's also ongoing research on intranasal vaccines which should work even better for that.
It’s not that the vaccinated can’t still spread COVID, but they do so at a much lower rate which gives the virus less chance to mutate. Anything that reduces transmission helps curb the development of new variants and vaccinations are one important piece of achieving that. Here’s a resource by the WHO which describes this.
After CDC stops updating stats on deaths/hospitalizations from Covid19 among those fully vaccinated against Covid19.
As of August 9, net breakthrough deaths stood at 8/million and net breakthrough hospitalizations stood at 35/million, up 900% and 733%, respectively, since April 20.
Putting my Bayesian hat on, a reasonable conclusion is that if the breakthrough hospitalization/death rates had improved, they would not be holding them back on the eve of the approval of the vaccine.
Also, interestingly, CDC stopped reporting breakthrough infection rates that do not result in hospitalization/death earlier.
The page says:
> Vaccine breakthrough cases are expected. COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. However, no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people. There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19.
First, I must applaud them for the reasonable argument there. Now do Covid19.
Second, it is not the absolute percentage that matters. It is the trend. Frankly, a vaccine where 1/100,000 who take it die of the disease it is supposed to protect against sounds a little far away from "vaccines are 95% effective".
Where exactly do you get the 1.7%? Is it computed the same way the breakthrough deaths are computed? What is the denominator in each case?
I see, you are using this table[1] ... This is the case fatality rate (which is inflated depending on how many infections are never recorded).
Using the numbers provided by the CDC, if we put the cases in the denominator and not the vaccinated population, we have:
Hospitalized or fatal vaccine breakthrough cases reported to CDC 8,054
Deaths† 1,587
†341 (21%) of 1,587 fatal cases reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.
Now, if the CDC had not stopped reporting the number of infections, we'd have the correct comparison. If we take cases as the cases reported by CDC, we have (1,587 - 341)/8,054 = 15.5% of the cases resulting in death from Covid19 of a person who is fully vaccinated against Covid19.
Why did the CDC stop reporting total breakthrough infections (which would have allowed an apples to apples comparison of CFR here)?
Even if we had that data it wouldn't be a fair evaluation of vaccine efficacy. The elderly are the most vaccinated demographic, have the highest number of breakthrough infections, and have the highest mortality rate. There are too many confounding variables.
Just to add on to what you're pointing out, the existing UK data[1] makes this even more obvious. Technically it reports that about 2/3s of the total deaths were of vaccinated people (402 fully vaccinated deaths, 253 unvaccinated), even though only about 1/3 of cases are in fully vaccinated people (47,008 vs 151,054). But this is totally expected because the vaccinated rate in the >50 age range is extremely high, and they account for practically all the deaths (from those groups the <50 age range only accounts for 60 deaths, with 4/5 of those in the unvaccinated population). In that >50 population, there were way more vaccinated cases than unvaccinated (because the rate is so high), so if you calculate the CFR for just that age range it's actually about ~6% for the unvaccinated and only ~1.8% for the fully vaccinated, so in reality those who got the vaccine had much better outcomes even though when combining both age groups it looks like it was much worse.
In my home state, Massachusetts, .3% of the total population has died of Covid-19. If you make a safe assumption that not 100% of people have been infected you can make a very basic assumption that the infection fatality rate is around .5-2%.
I think you put on your tinfoil hat by mistake there buddy.
None of the numbers you provided have any sort of relevance to the links you posted. Net breakthrough deaths, as far as I can tell, is not a real metric. And only 4 million people have died of covid globally to begin with...
> I think you put on your tinfoil hat by mistake there buddy.
Condescension is not helpful.
> Net breakthrough deaths, ..., is not a real metric.
What terminology would you recommend for getting the number of people who died from Covid19 after being fully vaccinated against Covid19?
>> Deaths† 1,587 (20%)
>> †341 (21%) of 1,587 fatal cases reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.
The numbers are from the most recent update to CDC's page[1].
So, "net breakthrough deaths" as I called them are 1,587 - 341 = 1,246.
> As of August 9, 2021, more than 166 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
So, 1,246/166 = 7.5 breakthrough deaths per million vaccinated.
Since the CDC do not report these as a time series, but they just overwrite the most recent numbers, I linked to snapshots of the same page over time[2]. If there is an arithmetic error, I would like to know.
Now, if you look at the snapshot from April 30[3], the numbers are:
>> As of April 20, 2021, more than 87 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
>> Deaths† 88 (1%)
>> †11 (13%) of the 88 fatal cases were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.
So, the net breakthrough death rate is 0.9 per million fully vaccinated.
> What terminology would you recommend for getting the number of people who died from Covid19 after being fully vaccinated against Covid19?
"Breakthrough deaths" not "Net breakthrough deaths"
Your post is flagged and unreadable now but I'm pretty sure you were claiming 8 million breakthrough deaths. That's obviously wrong because it's two times larger than the total number of deaths globally among all people.
> Since the CDC do not report these as a time series, but they just overwrite the most recent numbers, I linked to snapshots of the same page over time[2]. If there is an arithmetic error, I would like to know
Your error comes from failing to compare to the right control group. Vaccinated people have a tendency to be much higher risk than the unvaccinated. Notably, no children are in this group. You're getting fooled by bayes law here. The baseline risk of people who were vaccinated was on average much higher. 80% of people over 75 are vaccinated. Less than half of people under 30 are.
And on top of that are missing the bigger picture that the most conservative estimates I've seen suggest 79% of deaths are among the unvaccinated. Combine that with the previous statement about who is getting vaccinated and you have a very clear picture that vaccines are drastically helping reduce death rates.
> Breakthrough deaths" not "Net breakthrough deaths"
That is nonsense.
This is the "gross" figure reported by CDC[1]:
>> Deaths† 1,587
The footnote is:
>> †341 (21%) of 1,587 fatal cases reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.
So the net number of deaths due to Covid19 in people with breakthrough infections is 1,587- 341.
"Breakthrough deaths" would use the gross figure, and result in a breakthrough death rate of 1,587/166 = 9.6/million (or 10/million if you round up). I did not want to overstate, so I used the number of deaths net of those where the cause of death was noted not to be related to Covid19.
> I'm pretty sure you were claiming 8 million breakthrough deaths.
That is complete and utter nonsense. I guess people flag without reading. I said:
>> As of August 9, net breakthrough deaths stood at 8/million and net breakthrough hospitalizations stood at 35/million, up 900% and 733%, respectively, since April 20.
Note *8/million* commonly read as "eight per million" (I rounded up from 7.5/million).
All deductions would include deaths avoided by the vaccine.
If there are ten poisoned people, and you give them all an antidote, then one dies of poison and one dies from a stab wound; the net effect was eight lives saved. If the antidote killed one person you might argue it was net seven lives saved.
Google "Net breakthrough deaths". You are not describing a real metric. You would be better off describing this as "total deaths from covid among vaccinated individuals".
> If anyone is willing to think, the increasing rate is problematic, because, naturally, there is a lag between when one is vaccinated and infected. Another lag between infection and hospitalization. Another lag between hospitalization and death.
Because we can actively compare current deaths of vaccinated individuals vs unvaccinated individuals, and compare them to our bayesian priors as you tried to imply you were comfortable with. If the vaccine is a flat 50% reduced chance of death, and you vaccinate the highest risk population, you might still see the vaccinated population having a higher death rate even if vaccine is working perfectly.
Net implies you are counting positives and subtracting negatives. As in, net lives saved vs. lives lost. Subtracting the 341 people who got breakthrough and died of irrelevant reasons does not make this a "net" metric.
You're right I must have missed the "/" symbol. But the point remains that your comparison is irrelevant and ignoring very bright signals that the vaccines are effective. The rise in percentages are not as noteworthy as you imply as we're dealing with very small numbers to begin with.
By comparison, in some years the influenza vaccine is under 40% effective. 0.9 deaths per 1 million is amazing (especially given the likely age profile).
In April the vaccination rate was much lower. In a hypothetical situation where 100% of people are vaccinated, all Covid deaths will be vaccinated people.
With so small numbers if vaccinated people dying we should expect that deaths per million to jump around depending on regional outbreaks for a while.
Neither. In April, the rate of death from Covid19 among those fully vaccinated against Covid19 was 0.9/million.
By August 9, it was at 7.5/million. CDC used to provide updates every Friday for the preceding Monday. The rate increased with every report.
The last update was on August 13. So, I wondered why they had not updated on Friday this time.
I see now that they just posted an update since this thread started[1] and after the approval was announced. This will increase my posterior belief that the update had been held back to happen after the approval announcement for political reasons.
I don't think this is news to anyone. There is increasing evidence that the length of protection vaccination gives is less than ideal - hence the need to booster shots.
> I see now that they just posted an update since this thread started[1] and after the approval was announced. This will increase my posterior belief that the update had been held back to happen after the approval announcement for political reasons.
It came out on a Monday instead of a Friday. There was zero evidence of any political interest in the date of the release of this data before, and there are thousands of potential explanations for any delay. But sure.
I’m wondering what the odds are that people will pivot from “it’s experimental” to “it was rushed due to politics/greed”.
I think a huge factor will be how many employers, colleges, etc. are now willing and legally able to require vaccination. It’s one thing to say you trust something you read on Facebook more than your doctor and quite another to walk away from a job because of it.
It's also possible that its approval will result in more people getting the vaccine due to those people now having an out from their initial reaction that it was rushed (but still sticking to their convictions up to now in order to avoid embarrassment).
Which still wouldn't be a logical argument, given that the same applies regarding long-term health outcomes regarding getting sick with Covid. But I suspect you are right.
I mean, technically, while there may be animal reservoirs, ~all of the coronavirus you will ever be exposed to is made by human cells. Although probably only 50-50 on being made inside a man's cells.
Thank you. Studies have shown that people who were previously infected with Covid tend to experience worse side-effects from the vaccines than those who were not, and the actual benefits from the vaccine for those people are questionable at best.
Natural immunity is a thing, just like it always has been. I've heard all of the arguments about why nobody wants to widely acknowledge it, but I just can't agree with them.
I think that depends on the theories that one has. Either choice would be based on missing or incomplete data.
For example, one could question the potential for autoimmune conditions due to the way the mRNA vaccine works and how the immune system typically targets multiple proteins on the cell. There's no data or studies our there about this longterm possibility or even the incidence of autoimmune antibodies produced by vaccination. This likely isn't a problem for the elderly since it can take years or decades to present/progress, and their value proposition is different than for younger people. It starts to get more questionable as the value proposition changes dramatically in the youngest age groups. The question of vaccinating one's child for covid is certainly a topic with a diverse set of opinions and very little data to perform a thorough longterm cost/benefit analysis.
It's it's that there are known and unknown/suspected risks with both actions. We know that some vaccine recipients develop Graves disease. Some autoimmune diseases take years to develop. So we have risks on both sides, but there's not a lot of information about how common those risks are, especially for longer term effects.
So all I'm saying is that the value proposition for an individual is based on the risks associated with vaccination or infection, and that the decision for people in age groups with the lowest known (short term) risks associated with infection have lower known benefits putting more emphasis on the unknown (longer term) risks or benefits. So for someone over 70 with about a 5% IFR, it's easy to say there is more benefit than risk because it's easy to see if a serious side effect is happening at a 5% rate or higher and the time horizon for longterm issues developing is limited by natural lifespan. With the quality of the VAERS data and the much longer time horizon, it's more difficult to discern a benefit for someone with an IFR of .002%. Of course we can't even look at the rates of many of the side effects to compare something other than IFR because the data data quality doesn't allow for that level of sensitivity.
You are arguing "we don't know what'll happen with vaccines" as though you do know the long term risks of COVID-19. You do not - you cannot. COVID-19 has not existed for longer then about 1.5 years.
Other coronaviruses have, but mRNA vaccine technology is about 15 years old - that's how long it's been in development and studied. Long term effects are in fact, known. But if you were concerned about that, you could take J&J or Astrazeneca, both of which are based on adenovirus vector technology and has existed since the 1980s - the clotting side effect is both rare and treatable.
re: Graves disease - [1] is literally a risk of getting COVID-19.
You are engaging in some both-sideism FUD and misrepresenting the technology of vaccines while pretending a brand new novel disease is some well-understood thing.
I think you are misunderstanding what I've been saying.
"You are arguing "we don't know what'll happen with vaccines" as though you do know the long term risks of COVID-19."
I'm saying that the longterm effects are not known for either.
"Other coronaviruses have, but mRNA vaccine technology is about 15 years old - that's how long it's been in development and studied."
Do you have some links for this? The mRNA technology was used a little differently in the past from what I saw. Most of the research I saw were attempts to correct genetic issues, not trigger immune responses against the proteins created. Not to mention, the OP article even has the FDA stating that they don't know the longterm effects of vaccination, so it seems my statement is consistent with the expert opinion.
"But if you were concerned about that, you could take J&J or Astrazeneca, both of which are based on adenovirus vector technology and has existed since the 1980s - the clotting side effect is both rare and treatable."
It's a similar mechanism, right? You're just using a virus to carry the genetic material, which also involves an extra transcription step in the cell (what is theorized as causing mutations in the spike and thus the stroke/clotting issues). Still quite different from the traditional inactive or protein based ones.
Have either technologies been used in a wide scale way (1M+ people) on the timeframes you mention?
"You are engaging in some both-sideism FUD and misrepresenting the technology of vaccines while pretending a brand new novel disease is some well-understood thing."
First off, it's not FUD. I'm not fear mongering. There's no doubt expressed about known things. Sure, there is uncertainty about both sides, but even the experts acknowledge this in a similarly objective way (ie I lack the motive behind FUD). My statements have been objective about how one may be approaching the decision. Where have I misrepresented vaccine technology? I am not saying covid is well known - in fact, your statement contradicts your other statement about "both-sidism FUD" since I can't possibly be claiming it's well understood and simultaneously claim fear, uncertainty, and doubt about it.
If you read it, you can see the discussion is about how people might be approaching a decision with a mix of fairly well known short term data and relatively little known long term data, and how the value proposition changes.
I understand that both Covid/vaccines might have unknown unknowns and I also get the disproportional importance of long-term effects.
I don't fully understand what you mean by "the data quality doesn't allow for that level of sensitivity" - we have already had two instances where very rare side effects of Covid vaccines were recognised - blood clotting for AZ and myocarditis for Biontech.
You wrote, and that's what my question was hinting at:
> "one could question the potential for autoimmune conditions due to the way the mRNA vaccine works"
What do you mean by that? What is specific about the mRNA mechanism that could lead to autoimmune issues?
"I don't fully understand what you mean by "the data quality doesn't allow for that level of sensitivity" - we have already had two instances where very rare side effects of Covid vaccines were recognised - blood clotting for AZ and myocarditis for Biontech."
Sure. So those two issues are not only rare in relation to the vaccine, but also rare in the general population. In fact the clotting issue is occurring at the same rate as in the general population - 5 per 1M people. The types of stuff that will slip through the cracks will be things that are similarly rare in vaccines, yet more common in the general population and tend to be dismissed as unrelated without concrete evidence of that. For an example, take strokes in patients under 30. You have a general occurrence of about 5K per 1M. In order to show a significant difference, you would need a much higher number of cases reported. I believe there's some research being done about some covid vaccines potentially increasing stroke risk, just as covid has been suggested as doing this. I actually know someone who was hospitalized with a stroke between their first and second dose, and it wasn't reported.
This can be especially hard if even the fairly rare adverse events that have previously known relation to vaccines are being reported as little as 12% of the time. Keep in mind that these two events are listed in the packet inserts and are required by law to be reported by the medical professional and are still being massively under reported. What chance do we have of actually catching the rare events that have statistical "cover" of a large bed of naturally occurring incidents in the general population?
"What is specific about the mRNA mechanism that could lead to autoimmune issues?"
This is just a theory. The immune system generally codes off of multiple proteins. If we are exposing a spike protein on a cell wall, then there's a possibility that the immune system may code off of the proteins normally found on our cell in addition to the intended partial spike protein. There's no data that I could find on pre vs post vaccination autoimmune antibody levels. So it seems nobody is looking at this. Even then, little is known about the relation of those antibodies and actual development of autoimmune conditions.
> In fact the clotting issue is occurring at the same rate as in the general population - 5 per 1M people.
No, blood clotting occurred at roughly 1.5-2x the rate, so ~1 per 100k. Look at the data from the UK, Germany or Norway, which raised the rare side effects independently with the EMA [1].
No doubt that underreporting is a real issue, but how is it different to Covid or any other drug/disease? Wouldn't you agree that underreporting is lowest in a pandemic?
> "This is just a theory."
How likely do you think your theory is? Have you spoken to a medical professional or an immunologist about your theory?
Where are you getting the 2x going rate number? I see in this link (from your wiki page) that they are estimating the background occurence to be between 2-16 per 1M. It also explains why they think Germany's numbers are higher. The UK numbers would still be in line with the background range I found earlier (2-5 per 1M). Either way, I think it's still consistent with the idea that events with low background rates are easier to catch because each event carries more significance and is less likely to face bias from the doctor to write it off as in related.
"No doubt that underreporting is a real issue, but how is it different to Covid or any other drug/disease? Wouldn't you agree that underreporting is lowest in a pandemic?"
I don't think it's significantly different. The emergency use order did carry additional reporting requirements, but it also opened it up to be administered by people who would not normally administer vaccines and would not likely be familiar with VAERS, and in some cases patients doesn't know who administered it to contact them to file the report. If you couple this with the massive increase in vaccines administered, I think the number of unreported events are higher now, but the rate is likely similar to before. That's just my guess based on the reasons above and my own experiences. Why do you think it would be lowest now?
"How likely do you think your theory is? Have you spoken to a medical professional or an immunologist about your theory?"
I'm not sure how likely it is. I feel like it depends mostly on the individual, like most autoimmune diseases do. I did discuss this with a doctor and they said that it is a reasonable question and theory that appears not to have any studies looking into either side of it. It's possible we won't know for years or decades, especially since we don't even know how autoimmune antibodies levels lead to disease in general.
PEI (German Institute for Vaccines) on 16 Mar 2021 (!) [1]:
"(4) The number of these cases after vaccination with COVID-19 AstraZeneca is statistically significantly higher than the number of cerebral venous thromboses that normally occur in the unvaccinated population. For this purpose, an observed-versus-expected analysis was performed, comparing the number of cases expected without vaccination in a 14-day
time window with the number of cases reported after approximately 1.6 million AstraZeneca vaccinations in Germany. About one case would have been expected, and seven cases had been reported."
UK vaccine safety report up to 11 Aug 2021 [2]:
"The overall incidence after first or unknown doses was 14.9 per million doses."
German safety report up to 31 Jul 2021 [3, in German], cf. table 7,8:
Women: 1.462 cases per 100k doses
Men: 1.305 cases per 100k doses
Can't find the numbers for Norway, they initially reported the highest number per 100k.
> I'm not sure how likely it is.
Do I understand correctly that there is no mechanism specific to how the mRNA vaccines work? The effect you describe ("we are exposing a spike protein on a cell wall") is far more common in Covid due to how the abundance of expression of the spike protein, correct?
That's interesting. It looks like there is a lot of conflicting information on the background rate. And even the UK rate in the quote is higher than the Germany's, yet the article I linked to from the wiki is saying Germany's is higher, and that the estimates on background level vary wildly. Although if it is multiple times the normal rate, then this would not be an example of sensitive reporting/detection anyways (not to mention that EU reporting takes place outside of the VAERS system).
"Do I understand correctly that there is no mechanism specific to how the mRNA vaccines work?"
No. Covid does not add a spike protein to an existing cell. It replicates an entire covid cell. So you have covid virus with a spike and a bunch of other covid proteins if you have covid. Or you have a human cell with a partial spike and all the normal human cell proteins. The immune system usually codes off of, or attacks, multiple proteins. It's possible the immune system will identify the spike and some of the normal cell proteins. A similar sort of mimicry is theorized to occur when the proteins in a virus are similar enough to a human protein.
Chances of infection given behavioural patterns, to be defined, × probability of damages post-infection, given demographics etc., to be defined¹
vs
100% for the chance of vaccination, × probability of damages post-vaccine (post 1 week, post 1 month, post 3 months etc.), given demographics etc., to be defined.
Probably you meant that according to available data, the probability of damages post-vaccine seem very low. Some people are concerned because those numbers do not seem to match the anecdotal they have around, so they would like to have better data - because some possible consequences are much more than nuisances. I say, if some entity kept an active monitoring ongoing, of the adverse side effects, much stronger reassurances - or less hesitance owing to confusion - could be given. I could only find passive monitoring around - USA, Europe, Australia, Canada etc.
¹The vagueness is such that in the context of this line, the last article I read mentioned values between 2.3% and 40%.
The whole point of clinical trials is to get statically significant numbers so that you can understand if the vaccine is safe, months after administration. It was done before the vaccine was approved.
Now you can debate the meaning of "safe". And you can make decisions based on anecdotes. And you can say it would be nice to have better data. But that is true for most things in life. Most people go to restaurants and drive their cars on roads with reviewing far less evidence that their car and restaurant they are going to are truly safe.
Exactly like governments are moving goalposts with their measures: one lockdown... second one... wait no, a third one is necessary; herd immunity will be reached at 70% vaccination + infected, ah no actually only vaccinated count and it's 90%... did I say 99%? No, it will be 100%!
Meanwhile in Japan: people living freely their lives with no lockdowns, no forced vaccination, no vaccine pass. Another model is possible but the Western governments are addicted to their power trip.
> herd immunity will be reached at 70% vaccination + infected, ah no actually only vaccinated count and it's 90%... did I say 99%? No, it will be 100%!
70% is enough for the original Covid. Covid moved the goalposts to Delta which needs different numbers. This is not experts moving the goalposts, this is Covid changing on us - as was always expected to happen and why experts said we don't know what % is required until Israel showed 70% was enough for the original Covid strain.
Mutations were obviously going to happen from the get go. When questioned about this exact thing "experts" still stated that 70% would prevent this from happening, until they were wrong.
You may wanna look into Japan's cases and covid measures again. They got fucked over hard by the Olympics that about 80% of the population was against. 3x as many cases as their previous worst wave, despite travel being banned from pretty much everywhere and virtually nobody opposing masks.
It will be interesting to see if those cases result in many deaths. Typically when viruses mutate they become less deadly, so there's a chance these new cases won't have nearly as negative an outcome as the previous waves. The data is still coming in, but initial numbers look like a negligible amount of deaths compared to their historical numbers.
Evidence suggests Delta may actually be slightly more lethal, all else being equal. But all is not equal, a lot of the most vulnerable folks are either dead or vaccinated now.
You have an overly rosy picture of Japan. Their population is very compliant and already used to masks as a way to avoid spreading disease, and they are still experiencing a surge in cases that has caused them to declare a state of emergency in the Tokyo area, and remove spectators from the paralympics.
Herd immunity happens when a disease can't spread because all people surrounding the infected person have enough immediate immunity to stifle its progress. Delta seems to be able to spread to people in the gap before the immune system recognises it, so it may be something that can't be stopped by herd immunity.
This is a pretty odd comparison to make. Governments are reacting to spikes in cases with restrictions in order to keep the public health system functioning within certain limits - ICUs becoming full is a serious issue which leads to loss of life for those that need an ICU bed, regardless of whether they need it because of Covid or something else.
The goalposts would not have moved if people actually put the health of their communities over their personal desires and convenience.
Other models are certainly possible, but only work in places where people have higher trust in their government, and think about collective welfare over their own individual selfishness. Unfortunately, people in the US (and much of the West) care too much about "mah lib-ur-tee" than doing their part to help keep their neighbors healthy.
Also I think your focus on Japan is a little weird; they went through their own bad time with COVID, and even consider the recent case of the large flare-ups surrounding the Olympics.
Nobody's saying they're not allowed to choose, this is more of a discussion about how some people may never really be truly satisfied with the safety of a vaccine regardless of how many studies are published and how much information on the subject is available.
While I'm a big fan of people having a choice, due to the large amount of misinformation out there people are dying. We have people in my country that could have gotten the vaccine but didn't because of Facebook conspiracies and are now refusing oxygen in hospitals because they're afraid their lungs will explode - due to Facebook conspiracies.
Again with this argument. This particular decision with their bodies is harming others. Getting really drunk and driving home is also a decision about your body. So is smoking inside restaurants. Those have been illegal for a while.
For those of us who got the vaccine, we’re still having to take precautions because of the delta variant spikes, largely from people who didn’t get a vaccine. Where is our choice?
There is a great chasm between direct action resulting in tragedy and inaction for the preservation of autonomy having an infinitesimally small probability of directly resulting in tragedy.
Comparing choosing to drive drunk with not choosing to take a particular action that has an infinitesimally small probability of directly causing tragedy are not remotely comparable.
Inaction is a deliberate choice. It doesn't matter if it's driven by some misguided notion of "autonomy". Deliberately choosing not to get vaccinated is about as close a comparison with drunk driving as you can get. People are deliberately choosing to behave recklessly, with possible deadly results for others. The only difference is one reckless choice is against the law and one is not.
No it really isn't a valid comparison and you're clearly more of an ideologue than someone interested in examining the entirety of the situation critically.
If the vaccines are effective, then the only people at risk are those that refuse to get it. Everyone is subject to the consequences of their autonomous choice alone.
The same is true for potential long term negative effects of the vaccines. Those that refuse to get it are subject to the potential long term effects of COVID, if they get it. And those that get the vaccine are guaranteed to be subject to the long term effects of having done so.
Either you believe the vaccines work or you don't. The variants dominated highly vaccinated places like the UK and Israel, so don't blame the unvaccinated for bringing it about. The selective pressure applied to the virus by leaky vaccines is far greater than natural immunity.
> If the vaccines are effective, then the only people at risk are those that refuse to get it. Everyone is subject to the consequences of their autonomous choice alone.
Vaccines aren't a binary 100% or 0% effective tool, it's somewhere in the middle. If my 10 coworkers all get the vaccine, it reduces the probability of me contracting the virus, even if I got vaccinated myself. There is a communal aspect to the vaccine that you are missing here.
That is simply not true. We were able to eradicate certain illnesses historically using vaccines by getting the vast majority of the population vaccinated, reducing the rate of spread, but they are never a 100% guarantee. I suggest doing some reading on "herd immunity."
It definitely is. I suggest you look up what a "perfect" vaccine is, and how they work. That's what most of the ones that have eradicated diseases are. They allow the body to completely eradicate and prevent infection and transmission. That's what leads to herd immunity.
Leaky vaccines work the same way antibacterial soap did to create MRSA. They leave enough virus present to mutate to evade the mechanism originally intended to fight against it, so only the most robust mutations remain.
Simplifying an efficacy percentage down to a binary "working or not" is a common disinformation tactic. When you do this, you are rounding 90% down to "doesn't work". This doesn't help the discussion. The vaccines reduce chances of death, reduce chances of severe symptoms, reduce chances spread, and reduce chances of infection. But none of them 100%. Boiling that down to "doesn't work" is kind of silly.
Not being obese and living a healthy lifestyle are more highly correlated with mild symptoms than vaccination status. That's why virtually all the people hospitalized or dying, vaccinated or not, often have at least 1 of 4 or so of the common co-morbidities.
We should all eat rationed, nutritionally complete dogfood-equivalent for humans, and have task masters that ensure we do at least 20 minutes of exercise a day. That will be more effective than the vaccine. It's for the common social good, so it's worth it.
The way the discourse has evolved in the past two years is unbelievable. You see people deride fundamental concepts of democracy like freedom, the right to protest, and bodily autonomy.
We’re talking about health guidelines at the state and national level here. What matters is the big picture not a single data point. No one cares if Joe has the vaccine, we care that X% percentage of the total population has been infected or that Y% percentage of people are vaccinated.
We’re in a tech forum do I really need to explain this? The probability of an individual hard drive failing is small. If you’re building a gaming rig, you don’t need to worry about it, if you’re building a data center that small probability becomes a problem.
How can you possibly believe those choices aren’t having an effect when we are living the consequences of those actions? The number of cases are going up, younger people are dying, hospitals are filling to capacity.
My state is essentially out of ICU beds. There are a handful left in Portland. That directly affects anyone that might get in a car accident, severe infection, etc. Most hospitals in this state stopped elective surgery. That effects anyone that has an 'elective' surgury like removing a tumor, delay means they will get much, much worse and have an increased chance of dying.
While I'm all for 'personal choice', I feel like COVID cases should be de-prioritized for ICU access.
> we’re still having to take precautions because of the delta variant spikes, largely from people who didn’t get a vaccine
That's because the manufacturers lied about efficacy in the first place. The whole theory for these mRNA vaccines was that by targeting the 'spike' protein, the vaccine would be resistant to mutant strains because that protein is what binds to the ACE2 receptors and allows infection. If that protein were to mutate, then no binding, no infection.
> Where is our choice?
You choice was to fund therapeutics that cure the disease, or try to enforce mandates. You chose wrong, now you live with the choice.
> Among 3410 total cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population, 1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group. Suspected COVID-19 cases that occurred within 7 days after any vaccination were 409 in the vaccine group vs. 287 in the placebo group.
Why are there suspected but not confirmed cases of COVID-19? The document doesn't say. But here's what we know: not all participants received PCR tests to confirm their status, only those that presented some set of symptoms.
> Getting really drunk and driving home is also a decision about your body. So is smoking inside restaurants.
Smelly analogy is smelly. You're talking about the difference between very specific behaviors being prohibited versus blacklisting half of the population from participating in society with vaccine mandates (many of whom are black, by the way). It's not even close to a valid comparison.
I get the sense that the overlap of people who are pro-mandatory-vaccine and pro-choice is pretty high, being that they are both liberal positions. "My body, my choice" is just fine for women's reproductive rights, even if it meant taking away a baby's chance to live. All of a sudden "my body, my choice" doesn't sound so good?
I got both of my shots but I am so tired of people blaming anti-vaxxers. Give me a vaccine good enough that I don't have to worry about it. Today, I'm literally going to get a COVID test despite having both my vaccine doses. Why? Apparently my government isn't capable of providing useful guidance to keep me safe. We keep hearing about masks, but the mandate got dropped and there was never any talk about mandating the clearly superior KN95 or N95 masks.
Anti-vaxxers have been consistent from the beginning that they're not getting vaccinated. You know whose position keeps changing? FDA & CDC. Whether it's how effective the vaccine is, what the side effects are, do we need to wear masks, how much social distancing is required, whether or not a booster is useful...
You and everyone else blaming anti-vaxxers are letting the government redirect blame for its own failures.
> Why? Apparently my government isn't capable of providing useful guidance to keep me safe. We keep hearing about masks, but the mandate got dropped and there was never any talk about mandating the clearly superior KN95 or N95 masks.
> Anti-vaxxers have been consistent from the beginning that they're not getting vaccinated. You know whose position keeps changing? FDA & CDC. Whether it's how effective the vaccine is, what the side effects are, do we need to wear masks, how much social distancing is required, whether or not a booster is useful...
> You and everyone else blaming anti-vaxxers are letting the government redirect blame for its own failures.
Science adapts and adjusts based on new information.
The lack of willingness to adapt when confronted with new evidence has an unfortunate name.
Science does adapt. And as often repeated, we know little to nothing about COVID.
Lifting the mask mandate was a political move, and it was a poor one. Not pushing KN95/N95 when it was basically guaranteed to be increased protection was a poor move. Taking us out of lockdown, and failing to reinstate the lockdown, was a political move. Also a poor choice.
You're over here talking about science. Half of these decisions are being made based on politics. Wouldn't surprise me if the vaccine approval were also.
It's a mix of politics and science, though. You might argue about the US, ok. But what about Iceland? Singapore? Switzerland? Etc, etc, ad nauseam.
Not every government out there is super abusive.
The alternative is that they're all crazy (and/or malicious), and that's a <<very>> difficult thing to prove. So difficult that the simpler explanation is that they are following scientific processes, slightly mixed with politics and also... full of mistakes because we're all human.
Are you seriously arguing that politics is somehow unique to the USA? What kind of argument is that?
> The alternative is that they're all crazy (and/or malicious), and that's a <<very>> difficult thing to prove.
You don't have to assume the government is crazy or malicious. People are tired of lockdowns, they're tired of COVID, they're tired of wearing masks. Businesses, like restaurants, have been put in a tough spot. I get all that. So do our government officials.
That doesn't mean that there isn't room to criticize government for its mistakes. We already knew there were anti-vaxxers before the pandemic started.
> So difficult that the simpler explanation is that they are following scientific processes
They are _trying_ to. They're not. Lifting the lockdown just because things got better for a bit was a fucking stupid idea, and we're paying the price for that.
You would have been much better off maintaining the lockdown for some period and letting restaurants and other struggling businesses figure out how to pivot.
And for gods sake, the stupid shit like OSHA suspending vaccine side effect reporting requirements is just playing into the hands of anti-vaxxers (https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/faqs#vaccine).
> Are you seriously arguing that politics is somehow unique to the USA? What kind of argument is that?
:-))
What I'm saying is that if large groups of people, of different dispositions, intentions, cultures, etc. all over the world are doing mostly the same thing, then that means that there are some forces in play that they all can't really control. In this case those forces are social.
But not smoking in your car or at home. There are tons of American parents who hotbox their kids with cigarette or marijuana smoke on a daily basis which not only harms them with second hand smoke but increases their chances of smoking themselves by an astronomical factor.
Parents legally harm their children constantly by setting bad diet patterns (child obesity), or substance abuse patterns just to name a few ways. Should we make that illegal and have the state raise those kids?
Your argument is essentially that because we don't / cannot outlaw all ways to harm others, we cannot justify making other laws to avoid harming others?
You are also strawmanning to assume that laws that punish bad parenting would immediately skip to the state raising the kids.
It's not an argument but a question. Should we try to minimize harm in society at the expense of individual freedoms, and if so how far do we take it? Having the state raise kids is being seriously discussed in places like Harvard Law Review as an ideological harm reduction measure. Should any freedom that could possibly be abused to harm others (such as right to own a gun, right to refuse a vaccine, right to own and drive a car, etc.) be eventually outlawed, leaving only freedoms that let you harm yourself?
Cherry picking moments to ask targeted questions is more or less a form of persuasive arguing.
All laws restrict freedoms to protect the wider society. This isn't a novel concept. Not being able to murder is a freedom deprived of you. The question of "should any freedom that could possibly be abused to harm others be eventually outlawed" is obviously "No". Law is not the only tool to encourage better behavior.
But passing laws to outlaw any of your examples doesn't mean we're saying "Yes" anymore than outlawing murder does. Those are just specific laws. The question is "which freedoms should be restricted to prevent individuals from harming others". Your original framing of the question makes it an all or nothing case, but its not.
The state does deprive people of rights to raise their kids if they're really awful parents. That does not mean that making smoking in a car with kids illegal guarantees that this would be the associated punishment.
"Even if true, so what? It's their bodies. They should be allowed to choose, just like you are."
Is this still true if unvaccinated takes a hospital bed away from someone else or increases insurance costs to everyone else due to more expensive care?
Yeah, smoking is just about the only thing the insurance companies are legally allowed to upcharge for. That’s one of the main reasons Obamacare was passed in the first place.
The whole reality is now completely dystopian. We have people calling for denying healthcare to people who took “my body, my choice” as a right, because they voluntarily chose to not take the vaccine. However, these same people would be completely appalled by the idea of letting a drug addict die on the street from overdose, even though it is also a result of their voluntary choice to take drugs. The very same people who call for denying people things like a right to eat at a restaurant or get groceries without vaccine passport, claim that requiring ID to vote is a violation of civil rights, and all that despite the fact that black Americans are least vaccinated group in US. Total insanity.
Requiring an ID to vote is a violation of civil rights purely because local governments make it difficult for poor people to get IDs for free. If everyone was issue a government ID for free, this would be a nonissue.
I'm not aware of any grocery stores requiring a vaccine passport, but in general, the bar for a private business allowing customers in should be a lot more malleable fluid that voting restrictions.
It's not a contradiction of principles to point this out even if poor black people are among the lowest vaccination groups.
> Requiring an ID to vote is a violation of civil rights purely because local governments make it difficult for poor people to get IDs for free. If everyone was issue a government ID for free, this would be a nonissue.
No, that’s very much false. For example, Georgia offers free voter identification card, and yet its new voter ID laws were called “new Jim Crow” by prominent politicians. This is issue purely for partisan reasons, and the eagerness to introduce vaccine IDs while shunning voter ID shows it pretty clearly.
> I'm not aware of any grocery stores requiring a vaccine passport, but in general, the bar for a private business allowing customers in should be a lot more malleable fluid that voting restrictions.
The problem here is that the businesses are not introducing these restrictions out of their own initiative, but they rather are following government regulations. As a result, it is government which is requiring ID to enter a restaurant, but not requiring it for voting, and suggesting it’s actually private businesses enforcing it is just trying to shift the blame.
This Supreme Court decision only ruled that it is legal to give a minor fine for not getting a vaccine, not that it is legal to forcibly vaccinate people.
This Supreme Court decision says nothing about the extent of the penalties; simply that it is within the government's rights to enforce health mandates.
This decision is a referenced legal precedent cited for masking mandates, stay at home mandates, etc etc. The case -stemmed- from someone protesting being fined, but both the decision, and the ramifications, intentionally, are far further reaching than that.
Yes, it is not a precedent for going door to door and forcibly vaccinating people. No one is advocating for that. What people -are- advocating for is withholding the privileges of society from any who choose not to get vaccinated, and there is a lot of precedent allowing for that. There is, as you note, even precedent for -punitive- actions from the state for failing to have it done.
So if you want to get technical, sure, there is no way to force people in the US to get vaccinated, just like there is no way to force people in the US to do anything; there is only carrot and stick measures to try and coax people to do something. If that was the point...um, okay, but that also isn't arguing against anything that was said. The original post was about taking hospital beds away from those who catch COVID who chose to be unvaccinated, and not letting their COVID bills go to insurance; that isn't forcing them to get vaccinated, that's just introducing new punitive measures for not getting vaccinated.
> This Supreme Court decision says nothing about the extent of the penalties; simply that it is within the government's rights to enforce health mandates.
You are misrepresenting the case. The extent of the penalties was implied here, because the case was about upholding or rejecting particular state law, which listed the specific penalties involved.
> This decision is a referenced legal precedent cited for masking mandates, stay at home mandates, etc etc. The case -stemmed- from someone protesting being fined, but both the decision, and the ramifications, intentionally, are far further reaching than that.
There's a lovely bit in the Wikipedia article where it cites the decision. While it is not, obviously, the entire case, I feel it stands pretty well to show that the court was setting broader precedent than that one particular law. Certainly, it is very hard to say "this law is okay because (reason)" without also saying "(reason) is a good criteria to make laws from". At that point it's only a question of extent; there are laws and court precedents to prevent them from being arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable, but, again, this case still clearly allowed for punitive penalties for non-compliance, in exactly this situation.
>> Wrongly so.
Citing an opinion by a single assistant professor of an unheard of law school that says he doesn't believe this case should be used as precedent doesn't do anything to disprove my statement that it HAS been used as precedent (a statement of historical fact that I made), nor does it really strike me as particularly compelling that it SHOULDN'T be used as a precedent (a statement of opinion that maybe you assumed I was implying, but which nevertheless is immaterial to the argument being made).
Yes, but is there an attempt by Biden or CDC asking people to lose weight, even though fatties are the one filling up the hospital?
And the current vaccines have not ended the pandemic, if they had there wouldn't be a need for a booster shot.
Moreover, is covid the only disease on the planet now? Those overweight people are at higher risk of dying of other diseases too, or do you think its okay for them to die of cancer, heart attack etc but just not okay to die of covid
You stay happy with your biannual booster shots ( and at the same time cry here on HN, twitter etc ) and I'll take care of my health and follow that strategy.
What kind of nonsense back peddle is this? You made a ridiculous claim, at least just say it's ridiculous instead of trying to gish gallop on to other nonsense.
Yes. It's still true. Arguing otherwise requires applying that same logic universally. Any life decision that could result in worse health outcomes "takes a hospital bed away from someone else." Once you go down that road, you now need a way to define what is "healthy," so that you can legislate what to do with people who made poor health choices. If we delegate the definition of "healthy" to the FDA, then trying out something as benign as a novel diet could end up in medical discrimination. That's not a world I want to live in.
I noted this mentally only a few hours ago. I commented on HN, using as a metaphor "Universal health care provided by the State: [you cannot abuse it, as a common good - ] if you drink soda, you lose entitlement for your diabetes to be treated at the same cost". Then I added, "stretched example". Then, thinking it more properly, it is not that stretched...
Those under the FDA do not have that social constraint (free healthcare), to others it is a reality (with responsibilities etc.). And in a way, like in the context of insurance, different personal histories are relevant. Job related health consequences? Unforeseeable consequences? Jamesdean consequences? Not the same.
Because in cases like this, the choice they’re making with their body can be directly responsible for the hospitalization and death of other people in their vicinity. Vaccines aren’t fool proof, every person who doesn’t take the vaccine is an increased chance for those who did take the vaccine to get exposed to a breakthrough case.
I know I wouldn’t want to work in person at any place that didn’t have a vaccine mandate. Once vaccines are approved for children, I think people’s options should be to either vaccinate their child or homeschool them, since if I had children I wouldn’t want them exposed to the unvaccinated. The federal and state governments forcing everyone to get the shot would be a step too far for me, but I’m very much in support of it being hard to be a part of society if you refuse to take one of the most basic steps to protect other people in it.
are you overweight, elderly or otherwise immunocompromised? if not your risk of hospitalization or death [from covid19] is miniscule.
>it being hard to be a part of society if you refuse to take one of the most basic steps to protect other people in it.
there are a huge number of diseases you can knowingly spread with far more severe long term consequences while still being 'part of society'. frankly i do not think free and democratic societies can survive while trying to also fulfill the moral compunction not to let anyone die ever from transmittable illness, it is simply at odds with our biology. we, like all mammals are walking bags of filth and disease and no amount of indefinite containment will ever change that reality.
If you're in the western world, catch COVID right now, and aren't vaccinated, even if you aren't immunocompromised, diabetic, elderly, or obese odds are your chances of dying from COVID are higher than any other disease you've caught in your life.
Now it's true that chance is probably somewhere around 0.3% assuming you don't live in an area where hospitals are out of ICU beds and vents. But it's your _life_ at risk.
Most of those other diseases aren’t nearly as contagious. Many of those other diseases we don’t have an easy solution for. None of those other diseases were something that we shut down normal operations for months over. Very notably, we don’t have any diseases in recent memory that had a risk at completely overwhelming our hospital system if not dealt with. Small percent chance it may be, but while it is no spanish flu, Corona is still many times more dangerous than the flu, especially on a wide spread level.
For the vaccines we do have, public schools in most states already require vaccination. Almost every state already requires that children in public schools have the DTaP, IPV, MMR, Varicella, and HepB vaccines to enter Kindergarten. And I would personally have no problems spreading those and the flu shot as a requirement in the same vein as I stated above either.
We are indeed mammals that are walking bags of filth, but we also have minds that we can use to help deal with that fact. We can’t indefinitely contain, and we can’t completely stop transmittable illness. But coronavirus is one of the handful of diseases we now have a tool to deal with, and not taking advantage of that tool to stop needless death and waste is a massive dereliction of duty to one’s fellow man. This isn’t about “not letting anyone die ever from transmittable illness,” this is about a specific dangerous disease that we have invented a tool to help stop.
> if not your risk of hospitalization or death [from covid19] is miniscule.
On an individual level, maybe sure, but on a population level, enough people are getting sick to cause medical systems to collapse. I live in a G7 country where people are dying at home since they can't get a hospital bed.
"Once vaccines are approved for children, I think people's options should be to either vaccinate their child or homeschool them"
Alternative perspective, why should the unvaxed kids be forced into homeschooling? Maybe the parents of vaxed kids should be given the option of putting their vaxed kid in a school that has a mix of vaxed and unvaxed kids, or to homeschool? Given the general demographics of the unvaxed I'd say that's far more likely to happen then a school vax mandate. They would never get away with turning away a bunch of African-American kids going to some of the strapped inner city schools. Food for thought.
An alternative that could happen is vaxed / unvaxed kids in separate classes or schools. Though that wouldn't be possible everywhere.
Some communities will self-organize into highly-vaccinated and scarcely-vaccinated schools. My local schools, for example, will probably be highly vaccinated. A family member of mine is moving to Florida so their children do not have to wear masks in school - theirs will probably have a low vaccination rate.
As for the poor schools, you're right - we have to leave those open.
You are literally not allowed to work in aged care, schools or hospitals without taking a flu vaccine every year. You also can't smoke while in the wards.
It is a firable offense to not wash your hands if you work in a restaurant.
It is a mandate at most companies to take sensitivity training.
Restaurants can reject you for not wearing covered shoes and a suitable jacket.
You are glossing over what the vaccine mandates actually are. No one has prevented you from existing by not being vaccinated: but across all those areas and others like it, they are requiring you to be vaccinated.
The recent NYC mandate for example is specifically about attending indoor venues on Manhattan island - restaurants and theatres and such.
Worrying about getting other people sick when you do not reasonable suspicion that you are sick is a moral trap. If something is "everyone's" responsibility, then it really is _no one's_ responsibility, because there is no way to determine who spread the disease to whom. In this case, it's best to simply take the steps you feel necessary to protect yourself and your loved ones.
I personally believe you should also take the steps to decrease the risk of you harming people you don’t know, not just yourself and loved ones. Lowering your own chance of getting sick is part of that. If your habits lead to you getting sick x% of the time, and infecting someone else unknowingly y% of the time, which causes death z% of the time, you can consider your actions to have some statistical likelihood of killing someone. Within reasonable limits, trying to get that xyz lower is part of ones personal responsibility to me. To me it’s not a moral trap to say that people should feel responsibility for their actions beyond their ability to directly trace their actions to a specific harm.
What reasonable limits are, and above that at what point the government should step in and say your actions are too dangerous to your fellow man (or if government should have that power at all) are of course very hard lines to draw.
My body, my choice has devolved into your body, my choice.
To everyone saying, "this is different because it affects others". Seriously? That's exactly what pro lifers say. Their argument has always been that the decision to abort affects another life. You've switched sides without realizing it and will have no ground to stand on going forward.
For those of us still pro choice on principle, we have been abandoned. Now we're left to wonder if most of our fellow pro choicers were just mindlessly echoing "my body, my choice" all along? What else would explain a sudden 180, taking the pro life stance and defending "your body, my choice"?
Yes. I should be allowed to choose whom I want to associate with, too, and exclude those who represent a larger infectious disease risk. That's the rub. We need to make it effortless for people to make these choices.
drive it drunk on gvt owned roads? where you have a license to operate it if you abide by specific rules? and you lose the license if any of them are broken?
that’s a very different comparison to something like going to a private business
what about driving drunk on your own land away from anyone
>that’s a very different comparison to something like going to a private business
Governments regulate comings and goings of people to and from private businesses all the time. We don't allow people under 21 to go to bars or people under 18 to go to strip clubs, for example.
>what about driving drunk on your own land away from anyone
If you wanna walk around on your own land away from anyone without getting vaccinated and/or while having covid? Have at it.
Because they're fouling up everything for everybody else. Where I live (Oregon) if I were to get hit by a car and need an ICU bed, odds are I'd be put on a stretcher in a hall somewhere. All the ICU beds are filled with unvaccinated people denying that they have Covid.
We're having a vaccinated wedding. Unvaccinated/uninvited guests are now employing the base rate fallacy: "there are more breakthroughs than unvaccinated cases."
The thing is, it's not actually a fallacy when you're working out how much benefit getting rid of the remaining unvaccinated people would have. Think about it this way: if there are say 20 vaccinated people and 5 unvaccinated people with Covid, vaccinating all the remaining people or banning them from whatever event won't do anything about the 20 vaccinated breakthrough cases. So the ratio of unvaccinated cases to vaccinated breakthrough cases effectively imposes a hard cap on how effective this kind of policy could ever be.
Except that in reality there aren't 20 vaccinated people and 5 unvaccinated people with COVID. There is 1 vaccinated person and 49 unvaccinated people with COVID.
Regardless, your argument doesn't make any sense. If anyone -- vaccinated or not -- has COVID, they should be required to stay home. If an unvaccinated person does not yet have COVID, we should push them to get vaccinated, because then they will be much less likely to get the disease, and if they do get it, serious illness or hospitalization will be vanishingly unlikely.
Vaccination also reduces the "breeding ground" for mutations. At this point it's critical that we slow down the creation and spread of new variants that might do a better job of getting around our existing vaccines.
The vaccination is still not mandatory, right? Why do you write "excuse"? Are you really so full of yourself that you can not accept that people make different decisions from yours? Why do you even care? I assume you got the vaccine for yourself. So what is the issue? Why do you have to speak about your fellow humans in such a derogatory tone?
This is no quote, so please dont make it look like one.
Also, the comparison is nonsense. If someone drinks and drives, they did intake something into their system which made them a risk to others. What you want is the reverse. Everyone is by default a risk to the society, and only if the get a biannual shot from the latest and greatest experimental medicine, you deem them no danger to society. You are trying to outlaw the human condition. There are people who think this is a big deal and needs to be opposed. I agree.
Can you please briefly explain to us your negative emotions towards covid vaccination if you don't mind? There is no scientific reason good enough to not have it for most of the population.
Making it a stance about personal freedoms is often used but it detracts discussion about facts of approved vaccinations, positive or negative they may be.
I personally don’t have an issue with this decision if they also opt out of any (btw also experimental, not approved) treatments for Covid in case they do get it. You know, to be consistent. Will keep the hospitals from becoming overcrowded.
Unvaccinated people are prolonging the pandemic, and everything about it: restrictions, lockdowns, healthcare workers' extreme overwork, you name it. Let's also not forget those of us who have friends and family who have compromised immune systems or who cannot be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons, or children under 12 who cannot yet be vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers are actively causing those people harm.
I care because humanity has been screwed over by this virus for a year and a half now, and the virus could be completely controlled by now in any country with a sufficient vaccine supply. But it's not, because people refuse to do their part in helping to take care of their community. That's disgusting and unforgivable to me. The blame for any COVID-related death that occurs in the US now falls squarely on the shoulders of the unvaccinated.
Governments are prolonging the restrictions and lockdowns. Unvaccinated people are not doing that. Governments are.
Demonizing unvaccinated people is the language of an abuser: "Look what you're making me do to you." The way out of abuse isn't ever to comply with the abuser's demands.
Unvaccinated people strain the hospital system; the restrictions and lockdowns are a response to that. Sure we could just not do anything and start triaging (deciding who gets to go to the hospital and who gets to die), but it’s not correct to put zero blame on the voluntarily unvaccinated in either case.
Is that true where you live? The latest media story around where I am is that we will not see crowded hospitals since allegedly only unvaxed people will go to hospital. So what? Since the triaging monster is out of the way, what do you now use to make people afraid of daily life?
No, kelnos, there exist unvaccinated that take all possible precautions not to be spreaders. I know people (asymptomatic supposedly non infectious but-you-never-know) who lock the car windows and airflow when they pass into inhabited areas; I know people that have broken shoes and are not going to a shop to replace them (I am not joking). Their cynicism is at level "if a particle roams the air and enters the window, tough luck..." - if you want to blame at that level, ok. (If you want to also note the damages for the shoe industry and all the equivalent, that would be understandable.)
Other people are much more leaning towards frowning upon the partytime people "let us hug and stay together and forget about it all". Those other people believe that if people had been careful, the damages would have been minimal. Using some of your words,
«the virus could be [...] controlled by now in any country with a sufficient» carefulness in the population.
The difference is that Fauci's words here are based on the available science and medical understanding at the time, and that changes rapidly as more studies are done and we are able to observe how new virus variants behave in the wild.
The vaccine hesitant's tendency to move the goalposts when their reason du jour for refusing vaccination is invalidated is based on misinformation and unfounded fear. The exact opposite of good reasons to change your mind about something.
Health leaders and politicians entire job is to build and maintain trust. Mistakes like this only reinforce vaccine hesitancy. Those that are hesitant know that the science is settled - until it isn't. The only method to account for unknown unknowns is time.
It would have been entirely possible for Fauci et. al to say "The vaccine data appears to show 95%+ efficacy, but we will be waiting to lift lockdown mandates be sure". That kind of messaging shows both a respect for science and a commitment to everyone's health. However, it was an unpopular political decision, so mandates were lifted.
This isn't the first time they've changed their course after making a decision prematurely. To the vaccine hesitant, why is this FDA approval any different? There's massive political pressure to approve these vaccines.
What changed? The Delta variant arose and started spreading more effectively.
This is why getting spread under control is so important: each time the virus replicates there’s a chance of a new advantageous mutation making the problem harder. Wearing masks and vaccination are how we break that cycle.
Plenty of people said on day 1 that this was very similar to the 1918 pandemic, which resulted in the "seasonal flu". It wouldn't be crazy for the same thing to happen here.
You make a good point. Sure, some will just move their goalposts, but I personally know at least one person who initially voiced skepticism about the vaccine, and sort of locked himself into a position where he can't get it now without looking like he's "submitting to the man" or whatever.
We have all known people who will double down on their arguments after being proven wrong because they've gone too far. This could give them an out.
There is very little incentive for a large organization to take on the added costs of allowing a large percent of their staff/members to remain unvaccinated now.
And despite all stories/articles about the desperate, angry anti-vax people, they are really just a small minority who are good at being noisy, and the rest of us are becoming increasingly impatient with them.
The "small minority" is stated in the parent comment to be the "desperate, angry anti-vax people". Some of those are in the 50%, but quite a few are "meh, whatever" apathy or mildly anti-vax there too.
I work from home in the middle of nowhere and I've had the real deal. It might seem small to someone who already has made their decision but its certainly some small injustice to have people vaccinated against their will for no apparently good reason. Now, consider how I feel about my children.
Maybe you are not talking about "me" but I guess I couldn't tell from your comment.
I am curious to see how this goes, because it will also be a clear indicator where our society and civilization is heading if there is no legal recourse against illegitimate authoritarian dictates that simply alter established practices to follow form over function.
There is of course also the issue that "mandates" come with legal liability for consequences that the manufacturers are seemingly not liable for. However, when you mandate or even pressure your employees, you are violating several laws, let alone fundamental human rights, and you are also not just taking responsibility for the effects/impacts but you are unnecessarily snatching that liability when it is not at all necessary. It's actually kind of mind boggling how we are looking at a situation where people, companies, and organizations are demanding to increase their legal risks by purposefully taking on legal liabilities they would have inherent protection from just by doing nothing.
I know someone with a totally inexplicable, possibly neurological issue (but no one can tell her) that started with the injection. She chose to submit herself to the experimental treatment, so she is personally liable even if it kills her because the corporations have been given immunity, but that outcome would be quite different if her employer had mandated/coerced her into taking the injections.
I don't think people, organizations, and corporations are taking that into account adequately and are rather mind bogglingly rushing to snatch the bag of all the legal liability the manufacturers were exempt from, where if they just did nothing they would be no legal liability at all.
It's rather irrational and actually quite insane, and I just can't make sense of why it is happening, let that there is apparently no one saying this. The only thing I can guess is that it's the effects of moral hazard after decades of nearly zero consequences, let alone of any substance, for the administrative and ruling class. Why would you not jump in head long if you have not only never suffered any consequences, but it has made you insanely wealthy too. Of course you would sycophantically rush to be the most obsequious to the system.
I work for a company that I consider pro-vax, but they are not requiring vaccination. My guess it is for liability reasons, and they will probably defer to local regulations.
I'm vaccinated and everyone I know is, but I cringe a bit at the tolerance of what seems authoritarian to me. If I were to wager, things get better once antiviral treatments improve and when data analysis gets better, not when "full compliance" happens. To me it's clear that there is a seasonal nature, but it varies based on latitude/climate/time of year. For whatever reason it seems taboo to mention this. Anyone wanting to prove a point about masks/vaccines working or not working often compares one region/climate to another.
It’s not a pivot for me, particularly since I got the vaccine, but I think there are legitimate reasons to be hesitant and removing one reason doesn’t invalidate other reasons people may bring up. The big one in my mind is how do Pfizer, BioNTech, or the FDA validate safety of the vaccine over the long term? For instance what if it turns out that something approved today turns out to be carcinogenic twenty years from now? This is one reason I feel mandating vaccines or coercing people using other means (like creating great inconveniences) is not okay.
It also does seem like the approval process may be influenced by political pressure to remove barriers to hesitancy or to support vaccine mandates. My understanding is that the approval timeline here is faster than any previous one. Did the FDA really review the over 300,000 pages submitted for this approval and scrutinize it to the extent necessary? Maybe. But from the outside it seems suspiciously quick based on relative terms.
I'll start by saying I am vaccinated, got it the first week immunocompromised people could:
But I do not believe that this is valid at all, being that this is the very first mRNA vaccine.
>By looking at other vaccines historically and seeing that side effects tend to happen in the first few weeks.
I feel like what you are saying is basically like someone asking "How do we know that self driving cars will be safe on the road" and you responding with, "well obviously by looking at the history of cars, we have been doing them for a century!"
I actually think your analogy of self-driving cars is a good one. If a billion people had safely rode in self-driving cars in the last year, and it saved hundreds of thousands of lives, I think we'd be approving them too.
"By looking at other vaccines historically and seeing that side effects tend to happen in the first few weeks."
"Other vaccines historically" work on fundamentally different principles. We can not use that data to assume that mRNA vaccines are going to work the same way.
Nah. Historical vaccines effectively cover "what happens when we train the immune system to react to something via vaccination", which is still quite relevant with mRNA vaccines.
mRNA's short half-life - on the matter of a few dozens of minutes - and pre-existence in our bodies helps us not worry too much about the differences in delivery mechanism.
That's not how science works. We may have various bits of logic that can tweak our initial probability analysis, but we have to do the testing. When we change something fundamental, it must be tested, and things in the past that are similar, but not identical, are not sufficient. This is especially true for something that is being injected into the entire general population, which calls for the highest level of scientific certainty before proceeding.
"We think based on biochemistry that mRNA acts like this, and we hope it does that, and we think it probably does the other" doesn't carry much weight here. The probability of any element of that chain of logic being wrong is too high.
I'm not saying that testing wasn't done. I'm saying "eh, it's probably OK, mRNA looks pretty safe" is not a useful contribution to this sort of discussion.
Barring a time machine, the "is it safe ten years from now" cannot be answered conclusively today. We're left to use other available evidence to make a risk analysis, like "mucking with the immune system tends to have effects that show up fast" and "what do we know about mRNA in the body, especially when delivered by viruses?". There's a risk to inaction, too.
We don't look at evolution and go "welp, can't test evolving humans from microbes, so we must avoid drawing any conclusions".
So go get vaccinated! If you trust the vaccine that it works, and that it's safe, go get it. I certainly have urged people I know who are high-at-risk and don't share my ethical concerns about them to get the vaccine.
If they're safe and effective, get vaccinated!
If they're safe and not effective, or lossy effective, we have very big problems and vaccinating the hold outs will not change anything
For the record, I volunteered for a COVID vaccine trial.
"mRNA vaccines have been tested in humans since 2011"
So barely 10 years. A study on a dozen or so participants, all white, college aged men with largely identical diets. I guarantee you that not one participant in the 2011 study was pregnant. (Btw, I looked at your reference. A Bush era press release was less manipulative. There wasn't a single peer-reviewed reference. All press releases and from interested parties)
Compare that with other vaccine technologies for which we have centuries of data, and inoculation in general for which we might have a thousand years worth of safety data.
Or did we forget about all the inconvenient facts about drug testing? We appear to have forgotten all the research done about regulatory capture and all the ineffective and unsafe pharmaceuticals the FDA approves.
But, nvm. #BelieveTheScience and de-platform anyone who asks inconvenient questions. And let's compartmentalize away the replication crisis modern science is going through.
Also, for some of us 10 years is not very impressive at all. "It's not new, nRNA has been around since the 90s!" is a massive value judgement for the word "new". Not all of us work developing webpages with 3 month old technology stacks!
Do you believe it's possible for a sufficiently advanced society (think Star Trek) to develop a vaccine for a novel virus in a short period of time? What do you think this would look like?
I don't think a society can be as "advanced" as Star Trek. Societies are hard. To abuse CS terminology, they're NP-hard (or harder?). Star Trek seems to have only external threats, all internal problems are solved. The most boring problem a real society has is that of production and it is definitely NP-hard (see Hayek?). Star Trek has not only solved that at galactic scales, but has solved much hard problems than production.
Nor I don't think Star Trek is advanced in the sense that I would consider it "progress" vs. just change. I view Star Trek as the propaganda reel of (not for, of) a techo-distopia. Vulkans and that Data android fellow freak me out more than the Klingons whose society, while brutal, I can understand. I see more humanity in a Klingon because I can see a human society degenerating into the Klingons'. I don't see any humanity in Vulcans.
Btw, their technology bores me. Their tech is either impossible (warp drives). Surpassed (communicators). Or fraught with angels-dancing-on-pins philosophical questions (the "beam me up scotty" machines)
So, with the caveat that you used ST as an example and I'm definitely not a Trekkie, let me address your question:
No, I don't.
Biological systems are far more complicated than any system mankind has made. Every "cure" or therapy is really a very good whack-a-mole with hopefully lots of statistical information to back it up.
Take blood. It has hundreds, if not thousands, of components. Some are in pg/dL level of concentrations (that's 10^-12g / 100ml). See this chart [1]. How can we every really understand all the interactions among those various components?
That is not to say that I'm a bio-luddite (I am, but that's besides the point). Take penecillin. It's brutal on the body, but is one of the most important discoveries in human history. It has saved millions, if not billions, of lives. Im very grateful for penicillin, and yet, what an illustrative example! We gave too much penicillin with too much abandonment. So now, we have anti-biotic resistant bacteria. And, almost 90 years after it's first discovery we're finally starting to understand it's role in the havoc in our gut flora.
Btw, gut flora is another, fascinating, example of how complicated bio-systems are. We're evolved to depend on a symbiotic relationship with a gut flora that we've destroyed over the last 70 years of anti-biotics and cheap sugar.
So, while I think ab-initio methods (what Star Trek does) can inform and accelerate drug discovery (I worked on that briefly in my PhD), ultimately, no, I don't think we can ab-initio drugs through the whole pipeline (need-->development-->safety_evals-->approval).
mRNA is a basic building block of life. Your body makes and breaks it down constantly. If there was any worry about it life itself wouldn't be possible.
I understand the long-term concern but it needs to be balanced out with the known dangers of contracting COVID. While it's possible--if extremely unlikely--that the vaccine will have detrimental effects we <know> that COVID causes serious problems. Over 600k Americans have died, millions more have been hospitalized, and some people who have recovered still have long-term problems.
People who avoid the vaccine are akin to people who don't wear seat belts because they might drown if their car falls into the water.
(I'm fully vaxxed, and will get a booster shot if I can)
It's a complicated risk assessment situation.
My thought process was like this:
a) Realization: No strategy will be risk-free. COVID will not magically disappear.
b) Because of my work and my preferred way of living, I will interact with a lot of people, including international travel on planes, etc.
c) I am therefore very likely to be in contact with COVID infected people, of which I cannot guarantee they will be masked, or considerate.
d) It is therefore very likely that sooner or later I will contract COVID. It is likely, indeed, that I would contract it more than once, as long-term protection from infection seems lower than vaccination.
e) I'm not super likely to die from it, but the likelihood of short, mid and long term consequences is high.
f) I do not want to be the reason somebody else gets it (parents, friends,...)
Because of e and f, I think the risk of a vaccine is much lower. By now, we see very small risks for serious short and mid term effects. We know how long the mRNA survives in the body (I don't think we know that from the COVID virus, that could potentially hide for a very long time, as other viruses demonstrate), virtually eliminating direct long-term effects.
What remains are the unkown unknowns. Can it trigger something? Sure, we have observed that in other vaccines. But it is very, very rare, not only that vaccine can cause it, but also that if the vaccine can cause it, one is affected. Additionally: It is very likely that a COVID infected person would have a similar risk -- much of the immuno-response is the similar to a vaccination (but maybe broader). Since I assume a close to 100% prob to get infected at some point if unvaccinated, it's not an additional risk.
To explain the last point a little: A way you can construct a long term effect goes like this: If the presented spike protein is close enough to a natural,i.e. normally expressed, protein, the antibodies could affect both, and potentially destroy an important body function. That risk, I think, is actually higher with a full infection, since the antibodies learn not only the spike protein, but potentially more of the virus, so there is more chance of similarity with something else.
In any case, as far as we know, the chance for something is remote.
RE approval process: What calms my mind there is that all countries for which I normally trust the approval process gave their OK, including those which went with a different strategy, or where it was less of a political issue. While it's possible that they all got corrupted by political pressure, that's less likely.
Huge odds. People were anti-vaxxers before, and were just looking for an excuse to justify their position. Goal post moving is a thing to be expected nowadays
Putting political labels on people is a vital step in the divide & rule strategy: keep the people hating each other while the power elite pull the strings.
Adversarial foreign powers. The west is rotting from inside out, social media is exasperating divide in the west. For example, it’s wasn’t so common to see USA vs EU nationalism couple of years ago on HN.
> You can be hesitant of these new mRNA vaccines but for classic vaccines that use dead / weakened viruses, that doesn't make you an "anti-vaxxer".
Exactly. I've had more vaccines than most people ever will because of my time in the military. I'm good with it, I think it was smart given the circumstances. The question isn't "are traditional vaccines OK?" (yes) but "do I trust other people's ability to modify my DNA without error?" Of that I'm far less certain.
> do I trust other people's ability to modify my DNA without error?
There is no vaccine that's based on people's ability to modify your DNA, so no need to worry about that. (I wonder how the idea that they do still keeps floating around...)
I don’t think this is the right take. The actual opinion poll numbers suggest that the “never vax” population has remained fairly constant over time, while the “vax hesitant” population started higher and has gradually decreased.
There’s a pretty stable “never” population at 14%, and you see that as time goes on the hesitants have been gradually been getting won over.
I’m sure some in the “never” camp are using “it’s not been approved” as their current first-line given reason. But I think you need to break down the groups a bit more. There are genuinely people who are not fundamentally anti-vax that are just nervous about how fast the vaccines were developed or scared about what having “RNA” in the vaccine means (I don’t share these concerns but I understand where they come from). Some of these people will at the margin be persuaded by things like full approval.
>Some of these people will at the margin be persuaded by things like full approval.
Maybe some. But, while I don't really like governments and big employers wielding sticks in this case, you'll probably see even more people decide that they're not hesitant enough about vaccines to lose their jobs or be excluded from a lot of activities.
And while those sort of requirements could be implemented before full approval, a lot of organizations apparently wanted the additional air cover.
Absolutely, it’s all about cost/benefit and incentives. If you look at the share of over-70s that are vaccinated, it’s basically the same extremely high rate regardless of party affiliation. They have skin in the game and so they can’t afford to posture as it very well might cost them their lives to do so.
For 20 year-olds, kind of the opposite currently. Costs very little to use this choice as a political signaling gesture. But if the cost increases, as you say, behaviors will change and people will change their position. Talk is cheap, it’s easy to say “never” when it costs you ~nothing to do so.
But in short, I do strongly agree that mandates will be more persuasive than just approval alone. But I think full approval will still be beneficial in places that won’t make mandates.
Note that they're NOT mandating/requiring vaccination (which may turn out to violate constitutional rights here) -- it's still the customer's choice -- but you're gonna pay more, just like if you smoke tobacco.
This is really u fortunate and true. Approving a drug that doesn’t work and rushing a vaccine through the process may have the effect of less faith in governmental organizations.
This suggests FDA approval doesn’t say much about whether something works—presumably it still says something about safety. At any rate, whether or not FDA approval means much, to a certain subset of people it ostensibly did, since the objection that there was only an EUA was fairly common.
If the treatment is ineffective and carries any side effects, then it is a safety issue. The whole "do no harm" principle means that you are subjecting a patient to unnecessary risks and side effects with no possible benefit.
The approval for that drug was a huge error but you’re incorrectly conflating that limited, conditional approval with the far more rigorous normal process. The FDA basically said that the manufacturer has 10 years to show a clinical benefit because the drug was shown to accomplish its purpose (reducing amyloid plaques) with an acceptable level of side effects — and that’s not completely off the timeframe needed to measure a slower disease like Alzheimer’s. In contrast, the Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be highly effective at producing positive clinical outcomes and has been administered to massive populations with very infrequent side-effects which are far below the risks of the disease.
I think it was a big mistake not to keep that as some kind of trial but my primary reason for that is because it encourages faulty conflations like yours. The message we should take from this is that the problem was NOT following the standard process rather than drawing any conclusions about the process which wasn’t followed.
"mostly meaningless" is an overstatement. The FDA oversees a lot of drug applications and gets it right a vast majority of the time. No human endeavor is perfect; if there's evidence that 20% of approvals are wrong then I'll agree that there's a problem.
This should be posted to the front page of the site. I get so tired of seeing comments pointing out some flaw in an institution and concluding that the institution is therefore useless. It really is lazy thinking.
No, it’s not meaningless. That’s hyperbole and a misunderstanding of what’s going on.
That story was all over the headlines not because it was normal. It was in headlines, and in the front of your mind, because it was the exception that proves the rule. That’s not typical.
Regardless, the FDA approval was mostly about assessing safety of the drug in controlled trials and follow-ups. Likewise, the vaccine studies were rigorous examinations of safety and an in-depth search for warning signs that might indicate problems in small populations. The correct interpretation of this approval is to see that it has been thoroughly examined for safety in the field.
Finally, we already have mountains of evidence that the vaccine is effective. That much is not in question after administering an incredible number of doses globally and observing the outcomes. Proving efficacy was the least of the FDA’s concerns at this point.
> That story was all over the headlines not because it was normal.
It was in the headlines because it is normal, and some people were trying to improve the system but they failed. There are tons of existing drugs that have been approved based on surrogate endpoints, e.g. iirc the entire class of statin drugs.
To look at that Alzheimer's approval and then conclude that FDA approval is mostly meaningless is a pretty strong statement based off of that alone. Even if you add in high profile drugs that were approved and later were shown to cause huge problems, it still doesn't make FDA approval meaningless. It's pretty hard to get a drug to be FDA approved and means quite a bit.
I think you're over-simplifying the Alzheimer's treatment. The medicine was shown to be effective in reducing plaques, and has been approved for any medical use where reducing plaques is the goal. However, reducing plaques does not seem to actually help patients with Alzheimer's. So the medicine "works" in the sense that it does what it's supposed to (reduce plaques) but does not help Alzheimer's patient outcomes and should not be used for that purpose. The FDA made the bone-headed decision to let the medicine get its seal of approval anyway, knowing full well that every doctor in the USA would prescribe it anyway.
I like Gary, but on the issue of cholesterol is more complex than he portrays.
It is absolutely the case that LDL-C is correlated with heart disease at the population level. It is absolutely the case that LDL-P is correlated with heart disease at the individual level. Beyond the correlation, there is considerable mechanism of action evidence that small particle lipoproteins are the driver of atherosclerosis.
The primary issue with statins / LDL is that they are prescribed based on LDL-C, which is not appropriate at the individual level and are thus considerably over proscribed. LDL-C only matters at the population level, not individual. When lowering LDL-C for the population, you will only see small benefits since most people get little to no benefit from the drug.
However, people with high LDL-P will absolutely see a benefit from statins. You need only look at the FH groups to see this.
> I’m wondering what the odds are that people will pivot from “it’s experimental” to “it was rushed due to politics/greed”.
No doubt this will be the case for some. So, you've found a logical flaw in people's stated reasons for not wanting a vaccine. How does that help anything? In these kinds of debates, the actual goals or beliefs of both sides often differ from what they say.
For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not.
People end up locking in to trivialities like approval or some study, but they just obscure the real debate. Doing more to get the tradeoffs we are making into the open, and talk plainly about what people are being asked to do, why, and what their rights and options are, is much more valuable IMO than trying to find clever flaws in the reasoning of either side. Flaws are there, and obvious, but generally not central to anyone's core thesis, and almost certainly not going to sway anybody. They just let people score cheap shots against their opponents and pump up their own supporters.
These cheap shots or trench war between both sides does nobody any good, it divides people instead of unite them.
For me the major issue with the vaccine is the extremely fast track from inventing it to getting it out the door.
An FDA approval will not change my mind on the safety of the vaccine, only time can do that.
By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate.
>By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate.
We are way past the time frame for long-term effects to manifest themselves for a corona-like vaccine.
There are an infinite number of things which could happen but there’s no mechanism or evidence making this likely. The vaccine doesn’t rewrite your DNA and it strengthens your normal immune response, which does none of those things.
Those could also be long term side effects of covid. A double digit percentage of people who catch the disease end up in the hospital soon after infection compared to fraction of a fraction of a percent of vaccine recipients in the time after they get the shot.
Your priors have to be absolutely outrageous if based on the currently available data you think the risks are even within an order of magnitude.
It isn't that much worse when a cure causes issues. People endure terrible side effects from treatments to cure their cancer. Nearly every medicine I hear advertised has some risk of causing serious side effects, if not outright death
Ok, you're clearly a troll. After all the reporting from the last year and a half, no one could seriously believe that the entire population of San Fransisco catching covid would result in fewer than 200 hospital admissions
It's an impossible question for me to answer b/c I don't have any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on at the time. But I think the question is worth pondering for people because it may help people realize if they have politics clouding their thinking here. Not saying everyone with your opinion has their thinking clouded because of politics, but I think many do.
> we need more time to assess the long-term effects
You seem to be saying that the only issue is a question of time. Be specific: how much time? Will you say a specific number? “I will accept an mRNA-based vaccine if it has been around, and proven safe, for x years.”
The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports".
And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.
While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
I can't say that I've been following Danish news, but I can tell you for sure that for example in Italy hospitals and other institutions have asked for Covid vaccination in order to stay employed.
I wouldn't be surprised to see that Denmark does the same, and more, if vaccinations number don't reach the thresholds needed to prevent healthcare systems from collapsing.
And you should know that Denmark is far from as "laissez faire" as many Americans imagine. For example even before Covid they were enforcing some very harsh social measures targeting self-isolating communities, in order to maintain social cohesion, for example.
That's a good thing. If it's personally painful to not get the vaccine, we'll have many more vaccinations, which will lead to better public (and economic!) health. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences.
BTW, if you /don't/ get the vaccine, you'll still almost-certainly get covid antibodies eventually, via contracting the virus. As a reminder, the virus itself has not been FDA approved, and is known to have both short and long-term harmful side effects. The vaccine is many orders of magnitude safer than the virus.
Trust me. I'm not arguing against vaccines at all and I got one as soon as I could.
However, I think most of us would agree that literally vaccinating people by force would be wrong. So I also don't think it's unreasonable to be at least a bit discomfited when some combination of government at multiple levels and employers make it harder for unvaccinated people to earn a living and participate in society. Even if at the end of the day I approve of many of those requirements--for example I need to prove vaccination status to go to a planned industry event next month which seems very reasonable--I certainly take no joy in such coercion and recognize that it is further polarizing.
Sure it's just "consequences" but those consequences are such that it's also not really a choice.
I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health. I would very much wish that people would recognize this for themselves, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with forcing people to comply if they don't. We've done this for decades already; for example, many/most/(all?) school districts in the US require certain vaccinations[0] for children, else they are not permitted to go to school (and in many places, not sending your children to school, without other arrangements, is illegal, so they are de-facto forced to comply, absent allowed religious/medical exemptions).
Sure, you might say that the scope of some of these new and proposed vaccination rules around COVID go much further, but I don't see a material difference. If we haven't been up in arms about requirements around childhood vaccinations, I don't think we can reasonably be upset about businesses requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID.
At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop. I do agree that literal vaccination by force would be going too far. But I am absolutely thrilled that my city requires vaccination for many indoor activities right now, and requires employees at those indoor businesses to be vaccinated, and that many private businesses are implementing their own vaccination requirements. It's the right thing to do, full stop.
> At this point my patience with the vaccine "hesitant" is gone. Unless you have a valid medical reason, if you are refusing to get vaccinated, you are actively inviting great harm on the health of your community, and that needs to stop.
Let me ask you this one thing: if I have antibodies already, do you consider that a valid medical reason?
To be honest, if not, then I feel like you are not arguing in good faith.
> "I am sick and tired of people believing that their "rights" are more important than public health."
You're quite underestimating how quickly sweeping away humans' rights for "the greater good" turns bad. I'm sure China is justifying the Uyghur camps with your exact sentence.
The US has historically had a very strong stomach for legally compelling action specifically to ensure public health, which has somehow not yet fallen down the slippery slope of genocide.
Here's some history... Basically, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that states can take strong measures under the 10th Amendment, and the Commerce Clause can be used for federal interventions.
I'm a little tired of the "slippery slope" argument (in general, and also in this instance). Because, yeah, the slope might be slippery but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go on the slope. It only means we must be (very well) prepared whenever we go on the slope.
>the rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people over age 60 (178.7 per 100,000) was nine times more than the rate among fully vaccinated people of the same age category
So .18% for the most at-risk portion of the unvaccinated.
This is the latest data on Delta from the most vaccinated country in the world.
Why four years? Why not 40? That number seems just as arbitrary as the 10 months we've seen so far.
I think the part that seem hypocritical is that people that I know don't apply the same rigor in other parts of their life. They use recreational drugs that are sourced from who knows where with no clinical trials and a high percentage of adverse reactions even amongst our small community.
No vaccine has ever had a long term effect that isn't visible soon after it is administered. Vaccines are one and done and eliminate quickly from the body, unlike other medications, which can be administered daily or weekly for years and can accumulate in organs.
"This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. You wouldn't expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine."
How about the cases of narcolepsy that were caused by the swine-flu vaccine Pandremix? As far as I understand it took around 2 years before it was officially stated that the vaccine was/is the cause for these cases. Until 2015 the numbers grew even higher because of the delay between vaccination and the first symptoms.
I wouldn't really call that "soon after it is administered".
And the same is also true for covid's long term effects. I'm still reading new articles/conclusions about those effects.
Yes - but I think the 4 years that OP mentioned are not about the onset of symptoms, but rather the time until when the vaccine is officially not being used anymore or at least the time when these effects become visible to common folks (i.e. being picked up by the media).
In the case of Pandremix, the vaccine was continued to be used for 2 years or so after the first cases of narcolepsy became visible.
> I wouldn't really call that "soon after it is administered".
The median delay between vaccination and the onset of narcolepsy in that case was 42 days. Not nearly the four years magic number that sharken was waiting for. I would call that soon after it is administered. Far more people are well beyond that period after the Pfizer-Biontech vaccination than were ever administered Pandemrix.
> And the same is also true for covid's long term effects
Those long term effects are visible soon after infection. Both of your examples seem to be in support of my point.
Correct - I think there's a misunderstanding here. The reason why the OP that you replied to wants to wait is certainly to be more safe of side effects.
In this context it is not as relevant how long the median time is for side-effects to show, but rather how long it takes before the vaccine is no longer used.
When you said "visible" I assumed you mean visible to the OP - but you meant visible in general. So you are not wrong, but as we can see from the case of Pandremix, a median of 42 made it take two years before the usage of the vaccine was stopped.
There are a lot of reasons why it would probably be different in the case of covid (e.g. more media presence from the beginning) but in general, you cannot directly compare thus number (like the 42 days) with the 4 years of the OP.
I expect those side effects were actually seen within the first few months after being administered. It merely took that long for the company producing it to officially acknowledge it, because they are terrible.
You could argue that the same could be happening with COVID vaccines, but I think that is unlikely given the unprecedented level of worldwide scrutiny on these.
Why does this technique change anything? You are still assuming the supposed superior position, since you imply that the stance of your discussion partner is wrong and needs to be changed. Dont you see how patronising this is?
In any debate outside of clubs you assume you're right and the other person is wrong - otherwise you'd change your mind.
What the question your parent poses can do is get to the root of the objection your conversation partner has. "What would make you change your mind" forces the conversation in the direction of uncovering the true source of the disagreement. It helps to avoid talking about "symptoms" or issues that you might find important but are not important to your partner. It helps avoid talking past each other. It helps identify what issues are important to the other person.
This kind of fragility is hostile to rational discussions. There's no patronisation to asking somebody a question about their beliefs; it's literally just a question. If somebody asked me that, I would take it as an opportunity to really explore my beliefs, and think about what conditions would cause me to change my beliefs. It has nothing to do with the other person or their beliefs. We shouldn't encourage this kind of fragility and victim complex that has become so common lately.
In my experience, the intent of people asking me why I don’t want to vaccinate is almost never to really understand my perspective and my reasons for not doing so. Instead the goal is usually to find the first statement I make that they feel they can easily attack (ignoring all other reasons I state), and then attack that statement and conclude that I am a conspiracy theorist antivaxxer.
I experience similar things. Frankly, I think the media has put so many weird labels on people who choose not to vaccinate that after the lockdowns, the vaxed people found a sort of sensation in talking to non-vaxed people. It felt like in a zoo. "So, you are not vaxed because you are afraid of the pain?" The actual reason for most, which is "I have decided to risk an infection to let my immune system do its job" is never really talked about because I mostly end up terminating the conversation because it has this distinct derogatory tone from the ohter side.
> Come on. If humanity were unable to survive without the help of artificial vaccines, we would never be here.
I never said that humanity couldn't survive without a vaccine. Clearly we can. We also can survive with rotten meat and with poor shelter and with rampant war and famine. Sure a larger portion of us would die, but humanity would certainly survive.
Anyway my point was that when you're infected with a virus, your body basically builds up the ability to recognize certain proteins that the virus expresses and uses that to fight it off. It takes time to build up the ability to fight it off. The vaccine exposes you to basically the same proteins so that your body is able to identify and fight off the virus more quickly after infection. So really the vaccines are just priming your immune system so that it can better do its job.
You are wrong or tartuffe. Vaccines focus only on Spike protein. And beside turning your cells into a toxin (spike) factory there are lot of other concerns. Any medical drugs is defined by a specific calibrated quantity and a locality to achieve a specific effect, cure,heal , or prevent a disease.
Traditionals vaccins comply with this definition. Injecting in a specific area, a calibrated quantity of weakened virus to train immune system to recognise and fight this specifcic virus is ouite safe and achieve the target on most peoples.
RNA technology is quite different as far as what is injected is the recipe for human cells to produce a protein in order for them to be released into blood as foreign body to train immune system to identify associated virus.
There is no way to control the specific and calibrated quantity of this production. Also there is no control about impacted area with the fact that produced proteins in a random quantity can migrate everywhere in the body.
Also for the produced protein to exit the cell there is several mechanism with observed risk that the protein sticks on the surface of the cell turning it into a foreign cell (to be destroyed) from immune system perspective.
So basically calling such technology "vaccin" is a lie. And adverse events are more likely to be far more massive than safe traditionals vaccins.
Not talking about injections conditions where basic health checkup to judge if the future jabbed is in optimal health conditions to be injected are not done.
Not talking about countries such as Israel where those products did not demonstrated the marketed level of protections.
> How would you feed the world, if all these people had survived?
I'm not really sure what your point is. We shouldn't try to help those with weaker immune systems survive? How far should we take this? Should we as a society not make an effort to help the physically disabled, the old, the blind, etc. survive? Looking to the wild, basically no members of those groups survive. Is that what we should aim for?
> Yeah, what does the vaccine do that the virus doesn't? There's a lot the latter does that the former doesn't. That's the part I don't get.
Well the main feature of the vaccine over the actual virus is that the vaccine doesn't give you covid. The vaccine doesn't cover all of the multitude of compounds your body might recognize on the virus, but it covers enough for most people to build a better immune response to the actual virus than nothing. There is the issue that the viral strains are mutating and so over time so that a recently-vaccinated person today will probably do worse than a recently-vaccinated person 6 months ago, but there's not really much you can do about that.
The part of this argument that feels shaky to me is it ignores externalities. If it were possible to risk an infection with no impact on others then yes, the conversation is over.
But diseases don’t work like this. If you get sick, you will get others sick. If you get very sick, you will occupy a hospitable bed. Given current hospital utilization rates, this could well end in a sick person being turned away.
Given the societal costs, it seems fair to me to ask for a stronger justification than “I don’t think the virus will hurt me”
So following your argument, we would also need to outlaw every sort of risk-taking behaviour. Almost every sport except chess bears a risk comparable to what you say above. And most recreational activities also bear a risk that you might have an accident, which could put some stress on the people working at the hospital. Heck, the helicopter pilot could crash while they bring you to safety, so you implicitly killed them.
In fact, everything you do outisde of your workhours is your personal risk, so it needs to be banned I guess.
Sounds fine to me. I am blind and can not do most of the fancy recreational activities you sighted people are so fond of. So why should I care. In fact, I should immediately start a petition that makes your lifes more dull and miserable.
But guess what, no. Thats not my thing. I am not an asshole.
The required changes to liberty are substantially different. Giving up your hobbies means making a major change to your life. Getting two shots takes a cumulative 2ish hours.
Do you claim you receive substantial benefits from not getting a shot? Because I claim society gets substantial benefits from you getting vaccinated.
You’re trying to make this a binary thing, but we live in a society where collectively we try to make small trades in liberty for collective benefit.
I do expect you not to drive 60MPH in front of my house where my children play. I do not expect you to give up tennis.
Yes, my "substiantial benefit" is not exposing my system to an artificially created addiction/dependency on fabricated meds. What you seem to ignore is the long term effect of going down that path as a society. If the death rate in my age group were higher, believe me, I would take a shot. But since I am statistically not really at risk, I prefer to not make myself dependent on vaccination to survive.
Almost all vaccine producers claim effectivity for about 9 months, right? So after 9 months, you need to get another shot. Since you have decided your immune system can not handle COVID on its own, you have now a dependency on the vaccine. Thats what I call an addiction. Better english word is probably a dependency...
Frankly, if you insist I get a biannual shot for your reasons, I insist that you give up tennis because I dont see why I should pay a single penny for your spare time activities.
I am willing to retract my retarded claim if you do the same.
You agree that as society you make some concessions for the greater good? I assume you (roughly) coming with speed limits, yes?
And driving slower almost certainly takes more of your time every year than getting a shot. Both measures save other people’s lives. I don’t think you have a leg to stand on here.
>So following your argument, we would also need to outlaw every sort of risk-taking behaviour.
We do outlaw almost every sort of behavior that risks OTHERS safety.
>Almost every sport except chess bears a risk comparable to what you say above.
I'm not aware of any sport which is mandatory, as far as I know everyone participating is doing so willingly.
>And most recreational activities also bear a risk that you might have an accident, which could put some stress on the people working at the hospital.
Again, I'm not aware of any recreational activity that is a required activity. I'm also not aware of any that are participated in by so many people that is simultaneously so risky that we have an issue with ICU beds. Can you name one? We have mountains of data showing that covid outbreaks stress hospital systems and are in fact doing that right now. I'm not aware of any evidence that sports or recreational activities do the same, but I'm open to learning.
>Heck, the helicopter pilot could crash while they bring you to safety, so you implicitly killed them.
The helicopter pilot voluntarily signed up to be a helicopter pilot, nobody forced him to do so.
>Sounds fine to me. I am blind and can not do most of the fancy recreational activities you sighted people are so fond of. So why should I care. In fact, I should immediately start a petition that makes your lifes more dull and miserable. But guess what, no. Thats not my thing. I am not an asshole.
Well, you're comparing recreational activities that carry low risk and have 0 history of causing an issue with ICU beds, to a disease which has an extremely high transmission rate, and is provably causing issues with ICU beds. So it makes your arguments seem rather silly.
Viruses and diseases tend to have a way of spreading and causing harm that voluntary sports don’t seem to have. Two willing participants crashing into each other and needing hospitalization is not nearly the same as one selfish person coughing their way around the grocery store. The infected person in the grocery store has now not only infected a good number of people in the store, but will be the root cause of many future cases as those fellow shoppers continue to live their lives. You have a choice to play a sport. People don’t have a choice to live their lives (work, shop for groceries, send their kids to school, etc).
I'm honestly curious if you would apply this reason to other types of infections? or is it something about covid and the covid vaccine that has the risk/reward ratio tilted in favor of not vaccinating for it? When I do my own assessment, I look at the tremendous success of the vaccines (efficacy and low serious side-effect rate) and compare it to the risk and consequences of getting the disease, it seems a very easy call for me. So I'm really curious what you are evaluating differently - what am I missing?
For one, I am not sure about the side-effect-freeness. In fact, the covid vaccine is the first vaccine I know where a high percentage of people I know who have got the shot also were ill for a few days. So this is new for me. I have got a lot of vaccines around 15 years ago for a travel gig, and didn't have side-effects from a single one of them. So this is new, me having to accept that the vaccine might take me out for a few days.
And yes, of course, with a different situation, my decision might be different. If covid were as harsh as our media and government claimed at the beginning of the first lockdown, I would certainly get a shot. However, it turned out the media and government have overstated the danger, apparently to achieve compliance. This sort of lie (we were told "everyone will know someone who died") was my wakeup call. I was originally mislead and expected a deathrate of 1%. As it turns out, almost only the elderly die, and the deathrate (including the elderly) is around 0.1%. Wrong order of magnitude for real panic on my side.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate you didn't have to take the time to reply to a random stranger on the internet :)
Regarding side-effect-free - not sure anyone ever claimed that? I understand that the relative risk is very low when compared to the risks associated with the disease itself - even for those that might expect milder symptoms from covid. I think people (myself included) are just really really bad at assessing these kind of risk/reward equations - I don't think we have the right tools for it, and our assessments are polluted by our personal history/culture/biases (in every direction).
I can't agree with your assessment of overstating the danger - the full hospital wards and large death numbers at the height of the pandemic before vaccines are enough reasons for me to accept that the costs are high enough for the small risk/inconvenience I'd pay personally.
I also know personally people in public health and can vouch for the sincerity of their (very) educated advice. If anything they have been consistently critical of governments being too slow to accept their recommendations (due to political pressures). I'd feel foolish for thinking I would know better than they who have spent their entire career in this area. I know that's an appeal to authority which isn't always warranted - but I'm comfortable with landing on that side of the fence.
Was going to make a long winded post describing all my views on this but thought better of it. For me personally, the decision is very simple: I already suffered through COVID, the current data shows naturally acquired immunity is at least as good as any vaccine, therefore there is no good reason for me to consider getting it.
"What would it take to change your mind?" is either a starter for bribery, or it at least implies that the mind of the other needs changing. All your "rational discussion" stuff aside, please explain to me what exactly about this you are not understanding? I might add that it also does not help a rational discussion if one part is lacking the ability to empathize with the other, and tries to invalidate the other by claiming their whole point is invalid, without even trying to zoom in on it.
As a person with disability, I have a chunk of experience when it comes to being patronised. I can tell you one thing: the giving end usually does not realize they are patronising. Either because they are too conservative to grok the concept at all, or too dumb to realize they have to treat others as equals if they dont want to come across as full of themselves. Usually, if I confront them with their actions, they react like you just did. "Oh no, not me, you are wrong, and you need to change."
Maybe they do have the superior position, just because you happen to hold a belief doesn't make it valid. That's the point of discussion in the first place, that is to understand.
I don’t think it’s patronizing. You are asking someone what their concerns are with your opinion. They could answer “nothing” and that would be an acceptable answer to the question.
That question might best be prefaced with “here’s what would change my mind… what about yours?” That formulation might come across as more curious and open rather than patronizing. Though I honestly don’t at all understand the mindset of people who don’t want the vaccine, so I have to admit this approach could quite easily still be offensive.
Right, but I see elsewhere that it is mostly about individual freedom. It is hard for me to understand if those two reasons are two separate groups, or if one is an internal reason and the other is the stated reason, for instance. If the latter is the case, it seems like it would be good to have a curious and open conversation to understand the hidden reason. Though that is probably impossible, since there is so little trust surrounding these conversations now.
Not really? I don't see how you bridge a group worried about a short term existential threat (the virus) and another alleging worry about a long term existential threat (the vaccine) when the two things are 0 sum.
By the time group 2 catches up (because years have gone by of the vaccine not causing widespread problems) the threat is gone. Meanwhile the animosity has not truly been diminished because the first group will feel the second is responsible for insert issue pertaining to millions of people willingly not getting vaccinated that caused them pain/suffering.
It's almost like many people are "worried" about "long term effects" as just a smoke-screen to run out the clock on the issue...
The first group has been told it is the second's group fault. The first group is setup to think negatively about the second group because it deflects from decisions made. Let's say it brings on side effects like early dimentia or something much worse. The first group is setup to feel anger towards the healthy second group. The lucky children under 12 become the future. Decision makers can play this off as we are sorry we didn't know.
A recent study (last week) came out showing after three months it starts wearing and you need to get another vaccine. You will have different people at various levels of vaccines shots (1 to 3 and by Jan you could need a fourth). What being vaccinated means based on the number of shots and where you are in the wearoff cycle makes the vac vs unvac divided not based on reality. If you had one shot got a side effect and decided not to get the next shot where does that person fit?
This was rambly and trying to pull my point somewhere else but let's address.
The two groups(Those opposed to vaccination due to potential long term effects and those in favor of vaccination immediately) cannot come to a meeting of the minds. Both sides see a potential existential threat that they're prioritizing that makes them diametrically opposed to the other point of view ("if you don't get the vaccine today you're actively spreading the plague" vs "if I get the shot, my blood will clot and I'll be sterile"). The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The whole issue with vaccination is that of threat perception. Everyone is building hypothetical models for the future based, mostly, on personal feeling and enough data points from experts to justify that feeling.
Again: There are a number of people who feel that the threat of the virus is less than the threat of the vaccine and are thus using whatever means presently available to them to justify to others why they believe that, just as there are people who feel that the virus is a greater threat than the cure.
"data points from experts to justify that feeling"
I think that statement captures the divide. The belief that the experts have been shutdown in favour of topdown policies means trusting a select few experts who have used top down politices to shutting down discussion and threaten careers for those who do not tow the line. How do you get past that one side has total faith in the current crop of acceptable experts and the other sees them acting in favour of someone else's agenda thus has little faith in those experts.
Which is why I said that you can't bridge this gap. This is the point where "polite discourse" to try and convince people ends. There's no conversation to be had to convince someone to get the vaccine if they're in this line of thought, you can only mandate it with some sort of penalty in place for non-compliance. They are aware that there is a risk in existing unvaccinated, but they see a larger risk elsewhere in the potential side effects.
How do you convince someone something will or won't happen in the future when it represents an idea completely contrary to their worldview? I don't know, and if I did I'd be too rich to post on HN.
No, that's just a common excuse. People still smoke, eat McDonalds, rarely exercise, drive in cars, take drugs, have unprotected sex, drink alcohol, ... long-term consequences be damned.
The long term consequences of those things are fairly well known/intuitive at this point.
People are bad at optimizing for low and long term risks, but doing something knowing it's bad for you is different than being anxious about what unknown effects a treatment might have.
I'll add to this the absolutely weird monologue that is typically used when trying to convince people to get the vaccine: they pay money, they give away free things, they recite rappers (?!). But its good for you. Followed by demonizing anyone who chooses not to get it.
It is literally a carrot/stick routine. Do what I want? Get a carrot. Don't do what I want? I'll beat you with the stick of public shaming.
This site is the only public forum I've seen reasoned debate on. Everywhere else and debate/dissent are actively shut down. Any information that conflicts with the seeming narrative is made to disappear.
For example, major hospital/health orgs that have stated in the past that masks don't slow viral spread have removed that data in the complete absence of randomized, controlled trials showing that masks actually work. In fact, meta studies have routinely shown that masks don't work to prevent viral spread [0].
Reddit already has site-wide moderation enforcing removal of anything deemed "Covid misinformation" or really, in my experience, anything that could be considered anti-vaxx.
I posted in an /r/NFL thread saying that asking every single QB if they are vaccinated, and then frothing at the mouth when they decline to answer, is mostly nothing but a witch hunt.
I received a permanent ban with the message from the mod "anti-vaxx moron". I'm not anti-vaxx, and I'm not a moron, but this is generally concerning behavior about the state of discussion surrounding Covid and the censorship taking place online. You aren't allowed to have an opinion that isn't "Vaxx up and mask up and harass anyone who doesn't".
Merriam-Webster changed the definition of the word "vaccine" on or before January 18th of 2021.
You can verify that they and a few other websites changed the definition by checking archive.org
I'm not sure I'd feel more comfortable with the mRNA stuff being called something different, though.
I'm low risk, I wear a.mask everywhere, always, I rarely leave the house, my "city" has less than 500 people in it, and I have disinfectant and UV lights for deliveries. I go out in the very early morning or very late night, once a month to go shopping. I "work from home". My wife cannot be vaccinated at this time, either. Just a couple more data points.
I try to ask myself this question about any important decision I make.
When it comes to the vaccine, I got the first shot (Moderna) and had such a terrible week following it that my doctor was fairly convinced I probably already had COVID. Everyone I know had a much stronger reaction to the second shot than to the first, so I've opted to remain partially vaccinated.
With Delta in full swing, I'm now reconsidering that, but am making arrangements in advance to be out of work for another week or two, as that's my expectation going in.
All of that said, the folks I know who are unvaccinated have either already had COVID, so they're just trusting their immune system, or they are in a relatively low-risk group, and are concerned about long-term vaccine side-effects. All of them are fully vaccinated in all other regards, just not with COVID. Make of that what you will, but very few of them fall into the caricatures I see bandied about in the comments here.
Incidentally, I'm also concerned about long-term side effects, but I figure at this point, we'll have to solve that problem as a society, if they ever show up enmasse.
> Everyone I know had a much stronger reaction to the second shot than to the first
Counter-anecdata: everyone I know (in the UK[1]) had a much milder reaction to the second than the first - first one knocked most people out for a day or two; second one was half a day in the worst cases, couple of hours in the main.
[1] Which means AZ or J&J, I think, not Moderna. But it's anecdata, it's never going to be 100% helpful.
Worth noting that Moderna seems to have a much stronger and different side-effect profile, especially on the second shot. Might explain the difference you're seeing.
> what would it take for you to change your mind?"
In general terms, I would need the society at large to get off the moral high horse and engage in an honest cost/benefit analysis of all covid measures.
Isn't it hypocritical that people accuse the young not taking the vaccine of being selfish, while hoarding the vaccines away from vulnerable people in poorer parts of the world?
> Isn't it hypocritical that people accuse the young not taking the vaccine of being selfish, while hoarding the vaccines away from vulnerable people in poorer parts of the world?
It can only hypocritical if it is the same people making both arguments.
Yes, that is absolutely hypocritical and we should continue to pressure the western world to distribute more vaccine globally before giving booster shots to their own citizens.
That said, I'm absolutely getting _my_ booster as soon as I'm eligible. That isn't hypocritical; at that point the decision was made and if I don't take the booster it won't be sent to sub-Saharan Africa.
Someone might be holding out for a reason they can't articulate or justify, so they give have an answer to your question (what would it take to change your mind?) but it might not be the true one or the sufficient one.
I hope that this latest change sways some people but I don't think it will be a lot.
That works, but only if the reason is one they feel willing to give you. For example, I suspect a really simple answer for a lot of people could be "if it increases the chances of Trump being president in 2024". Or "if Covid killed my wife and some, but not all, of my kids".
> “if it increases the chances of Trump being president in 2024". Or "if Covid killed my wife and some, but not all, of my kids"
These are too sophisticated reasons. More realistic renditions might be “that other tribe gets vaccinated loudly therefore I won’t” and “I’m strong, only the weak get vaccinated.” Of course the same in-group dynamics etc motivate the vaccinated and we’d be lying to ourselves if we thought our actions are purely rational and charitable.
> it might not be the true one or the sufficient one.
Unless you’re dealing with an extraordinary individual or the issue is relatively trivial then you won’t be told sufficient reasons. A lot of what motivates us is deep down and dumb and we rarely want to admit it even if we’re aware of it which is even rarer. I find that examining reasons to change my own mind is much more fruitful because it’s harder to lie to myself albeit still far too easy.
For me it's the fact that I'm making the decision based on emotional factors. I don't trust big pharma and I don't trust the vaccines. Should be reason enough. There is plenty of things we don't trust in life, so we don't use those things.
> I don't trust big pharma and I don't trust the vaccines. Should be reason enough.
This is a good example of what I was talking about. You don’t trust big pharma? Most people who say that will still pop some ibuprofen etc when they get a headache so really they do trust big pharma when it suits them. The real reason is deeper down.
Not really. Ibuprofen has been in use for a very long time, has well known and studied side-effects, and is readily available over the counter in generic form. There is no big lobby interest for Ibuprofin at this time, so the financial incentives there are not suspect.
On the other hand, any time I see a pharmaceutical ad for some new wonder drug, my incientive-caused-bias hackles are immediately raised.
> There is no big lobby interest for Ibuprofin at this time, so the financial incentives there are not suspect.
Clearly Ibuprofen is a product of big pharma, therefore if it were merely distrust of big pharma then using it and all other ordinary drugs like it would be out of the question. Additionally, there are big lobby interests for products and services we all use all the time. Why make exceptions for them? Not trusting big pharma is post-facto rationalization as reasonable caution evaporated sometime before the first 500 million people got vaccinated. No, there are simpler underlying reasons like being disproportionately afraid of the vaccine vs the virus or not feeling any risk and not caring about the risk of others etc.
A lot of it is simply narcissism. Many people who are deeply involved in conspiracy culture have professional, emotional, or social frustrations and are grasping for explanations about why they aren't getting the things that they want out of life.
Im sure it’s involved to some degree but I don’t think anyone has sufficient data to know by how much. It could be insinuated that the demonization of the unvaccinated and the call for the use of force against them is an expression of narcissism by the vaccinated who are frustrated that their “genius” is being ignored. Both accusations have equal plausibility and lack of data.
I agree, engaging people is a good way to go. I don't know any anti-vaxxers personally, so I have to actively work to remind myself they might not all have the same reasons as the ones I know impersonally (who all happen to be full of misinfo, like Eric Clapton, et al.).
There are no silver bullets that lead to peace and harmony, obviously, but a greater understanding of each other is good for many reasons.
I would have no problem with vaccine mandates if they were instead immunity mandates. Some people, like many in my family, spent a year and half exposing themselves to keep the electricity running, food packaged, delivered, fulfillment warehouses running, etc. Seems very strange that in the U.S. these people, most of whom are young (which means they are at lower risk from covid but higher risk from vax complications like myocarditis), cannot prove they have active antibodies as a way to meet an "immunity mandate".
Instead, they are treated as if they are a threat. As if they are the ones who are overstressing the health care systems. When often instead they are the frontline workers these systems depend on. Many give care in nursing homes and at hospitals (in the case of nurses, a large percentage of whom still refuse the vax).
How many health care resources does the average unvaxxed healthy 26 year old consume? A lot less than the chronic smoker, the morbidly obese, the elderly, etc.
This thing was never about protecting people. Thats why it doesn't make sense to you. These health passes will later be called citizen passes or similar, and you won't be able to do any activity without them.
And if you are a difficult person with opinions about this, you will get flagged as a security risk and unable to use that citizen pass. People think I'm joking and it will never happen. But I believe that's exactly where we are heading.
I never said I was confused in my comment. Reasonable people can disagree about the necessity of vaccines for every single human. I'm making the case it is not necessary and that it is unethical. I could have gone into how these vaccines would be much more useful given to at-risk populations throughout the world instead of low risk, largely already immune young populations in the West. That's another good angle of this.
All that being said, I don't think scare mongering about social credit systems is helpful in this discussion. Most I've talked to who support vax pass are resolutely opposed to China-style social credit systems and I believe such a system would be difficult to implement in the U.S.
The goal is to stop the people from getting infected as much as possible, for a couple of reasons, mostly to stop mutations and also to make sure hospitals aren't over-loaded. It sounds like we're at least already on the same page with not wanting hospitals to be over-loaded. Getting a vaccine is much better at preventing reinfection than only having had COVID in the past, according to the CDC study quoted below (basically, those who had covid before and weren't vaccinate were over 2 times more likely to get re-infected than those with the vaccine!).
I'm sorry that people in your family are being treated like a threat. Can you elaborate on that? I also feel for those if there are issues at work, and I really think US should mandate paid leave to take the vaccine (at a minimum), but that's another discussion. :)
This report details the findings of a case-control evaluation of the association between vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in Kentucky during May–June 2021 among persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. Kentucky residents who were not vaccinated had 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully vaccinated
Sure, happy to elaborate. The best example of this is my niece who is a nurse in NYC. She cannot participate at all in city life after the mandate and will soon lose her job over it this Fall. She's very seriously considering leaving the city and her profession entirely. Those who feel that when push comes to shove, people will just get vaxxed, are in for a rude awakening.
I understand that you believe that unvaxxed are where the mutations happen. Do you have any peer reviewed studies showing this to be the case? We know from experience with antibiotics that the opposite is true. Humans devise a treatment, the pathogen encounters that treatment, then mutates to circumvent it. Of course I'm a layman so if anyone knows why the opposite would be the case for COVID-19 or viruses in general, I'm happy to be educated on the matter.
She cannot participate at all in city life after the mandate and will soon lose her job over it this Fall.
I do believe the carrot works better than the stick, but I don't think this goes as far as being "treated like a threat".
I understand that you believe that unvaxxed are where the mutations happen.
I didn't say this and this is not my full belief :( . Mutations can happen at any new infection (including breakthrough infections, yes). So, the premise is to reduce new infections as much and as fast as possible. I think we're on the same page that vaccination greatly reduces your chance of infection (even more than having previously been infected before). Getting the most people vaccinated, as fast as possible, is the most efficient way to achieve that.
Overall, though, you've gotten pretty far away from the original question, "Well, what would it take for you to change your mind [to get the vaccine]?"
Why would she be forced to take the injection if she's not a threat? They're destroying her professional and personal life over her refusal. She better be considered a threat for this to be at all rational or ethical.
I will continue to disagree with your one size fits all prescription. It would be trivial to allow an antibody test in lieu of vaccination.
Responding to your edit: I already answered the original question. Allow an antibody test to prove immunity. Stop demanding vax as if it's the only way to acquire immunity.
It's quite funny to me how presumptuous covid vaxx advocates are. They seem to be saying, "you're going to have to relent eventually. What do I need to say to speed that up?". As if there aren't people who will listen to what they have to say yet continue to refuse and have perfectly valid reasons to do so.
I already answered the original question. Allow an antibody test to prove immunity.
That's not an answer to the original question. That's an excuse to not take the vaccine, and I've already addressed how these two things aren't the same.
Burden of proof is on you! Why should recovered people be treated differently from vaccinated? Show that the elevated risk somehow associated with naturally derived antibodies is worth depriving livelihood. What marginal societal reward do you expect from this treatment?
2.34 improvement is the mean value on a marginal improvement.
If 999/1000 of vaccinated people were uninfected while only 998/1000 unvaccinated (but recovered) people were uninfected that would amount to that 2x improvement.
When you look at the error bars on those numbers (due to the ridiculously low statistics of the study) the conclusion becomes even more suspect.
Frankly a study involving less than a thousand participants is pretty poor justification to strip others of their rights.
Hi nice you meet you. Im not going to take the covid vaccine so guess I'm an anti-vaxxer. I'm also an anti-smoker, anti-badfooder, and anti - crime kind of person.
I've been living normally without lockdowns or masks for about 18 months now. So has the rest of my country Sweden. So excuse me if I'm not running around fearing for my life anymore. I'm pretty much convinced we all have natural antibodies by now.
I hadn't heard of Clapton's vaccine response until reading these comments. Just listened to an interview with him on Odysee. His description sounds exactly like my own experience with the first jab.
I haven't had the second jab. I've had nothing but pressure from almost everyone I know to get the second shot, and am still on the fence.
Pure fwiw, I currently do not plan to get the vaccine (but reserve the right to change my mind! ^_^). I'm not anti-vax by any means. I'm simply just hesitant with this vax, but encourage others with a different risk profile to get it.
It boils down to a really muddy mix of small things that all sum up to a decision against it.
For instance, I'm not the risk group and, due to being super medically conservative for _everything_ (to a fault!), I tend to not take medical interventions I don't strictly require.
I think that the vaccines are overwhelmingly safe from an absolute risk perspective, but among the least safe things we've deployed into wide usage from a relative risk perspective. It's tough for me to convince myself to take an intervention I don't need. Stack onto this things like the PREP act, guaranteed orders, big pharma's history, this being the first mRna vaccine to get through Phase III, and more hesitancy gets added on my side. As data from other countries rolls in, the efficacy side is also interesting, but that's a different topic.
Finally, there's just general disposition. Whether lockdowns, restrictions, or vaccinations, people seem to fall into one of two groups: those who favor public heath above all else, and those who favor personal liberty above all else. Due to some wrongthink, I fall into the latter camp. The behavior of those in the former camp pushes me away from my medically hesitant "wait and see" position, into one of, frankly, staunch dismissal out of pure curiosity to see how willing society is to marginalize those who made a 'wrong' medical decision.
Why do you let the opinions of some out group determine your behavior? If you're looking for advice, is there someone you trust with a credentialed medical opinion you can talk to about this instead, like your family physician?
Also, do keep in mind the premise here is that if enough of us get vaccinated as fast as possible, we can, among possibly other things, stop the spread of the disease, stop variants from forming and also lighten the load of hospitals so they can treat more people, including those without COVID. I'm all for curiosity, but is it worth it in this case? Also, you can still observe other peoples' behaviors if you get the vaccine. Even if you want to just observe the people you're close with interact with you directly, you can get it and not tell them.
>Why do you let the opinions of some out group determine your behavior?
I'm not sure what you mean? I have no control over how another group chooses to discriminate.
>is there someone you trust with a credentialed medical opinion you can talk to about this instead, like your family physician?
There's this presumption that people who are making the 'wrong' choice are simply uninformed or haven't sought 'qualified' medical advice. It's a bit condescending tbh.
To answer the question directly, yep. I've spoken to my doctor about it. We'll probably talk about it again next time I go in for blood work. His recommendation is his recommendation.
The behavior of those in the former camp pushes me away from my medically hesitant "wait and see" position, into one of, frankly, staunch dismissal ...
You said you were less likely to get the vaccine because of how people in an out group were behaving. That's what I mean.
The issue is that the behavior of this other group isn't benign. It comes with a very real "comply or else", which already affects my ability to participate in society due to a particular transient medical choice. It's a tough sell that medical decisions are best made under threats of harm (legal, livelihood, societal participation, etc..).
I think it's fairly natural when someone tries to coerce you into something to reject it on principle alone. There's big difference from "you should stop eating so much McDonalds because of downstream effects on the medical system" and "you WILL stop eating McDonalds or we will take away your autonomy to do so." I will not be forced into medical decisions by a mob threatening harm. If/when I get the vaccine, it will because my view of the risks/need ticked in favor of it (in theory anyways).
The moment you start talking about techniques you've already objectified the person across you to something to be finessed over, and as such less than a full person.
So many of our recent social-media extremized public debates escalate to the point of denying or diminishing the other side's personhood. They are an "obstacle" to overcome for some greater purpose, and thus we "must" manipulate, coerce or the very least impress conclusions down their throats.
The meta-context is that today we are all more psychologically fragile and the breadth of data points we have to reconcile gets wider (in no small part thanks to engagement metrics optimizations). We all turn into fanatics of some sort or other, fueled by this anxiety, including that of self-doubt. At no point we are incentivized to participate in the process of rationality together, we're only incentivized to willfully assert our own conclusions.
I see most of the "resistance" as an acting out as a protest for having been left out of this process, including having been honored in anxieties. Notice I have said nothing about the truth value of conclusions, nor am trying to draw a false equivalency of "all-sides-ism", because the sense of participation, or lack thereof, is orthogonal to the truth of content, but hurts just as much when neglected.
We've forgot how to be a fellowship of people who share similar fates and see each other as such, we've turned into mere proposition debating machines.
>The moment you start talking about techniques you've already objectified the person across you
There's nothing about any sort of technique that is inherent to objects and not people. Techniques are something used to achieve a goal, and if a person is involved in that goal, there's nothing wrong with using that sort of verbiage.
>thus we "must" manipulate, coerce or the very least impress conclusions down their throats.
You've made any attempt to change someone's mind out to automatically be something that's naturally evil. Ridiculous.
> Techniques are something used to achieve a goal, and if a person is involved in that goal, there's nothing wrong with using that sort of verbiage.
That’s what turning a person to an object is; to reduce them to something to achieve your goal over/with/through.
> You've made any attempt to change someone's mind out to automatically be something that's naturally evil. Ridiculous.
Ridiculousness is originating from your misframing which ignores the condition of participation vs instrumentalization I’ve laid out.
To give an example to non-objectifying persuasion; people pay money to get their own minds changed through therapy and it still takes years with no guaranteed success. This is obviously not “evil” (at least not inherently) because it is participatory and comes from a place of love and growth and alleviation of suffering.
> Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?
A vaccine that (1) did not use cell lines from aborted fetuses at any point in its discovery, development, testing, or production, and that (2) has been studied for 10 years to determine long-term safety and efficacy like we would do with any other vaccine.
> Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?
A lot of things, but just the top two would be enough:
1) Being able to sue. If you can sue J&J for baby powder, should be able to sue Pfizer for vaccines if anything goes wrong.
2) Falsifiability in government actions. Many rights have been taken away (some permanently) by saying "we just need to do this and then it will all be over" like "a few weeks to flatten the curve", "the last lockdown", and "x% vaccinated and we'll be back to normal".
But when they don't work, the people are blamed, more rights are taken and more restrictions imposed. It's never that the actions were wrong.
I expect something like if "70% of people are vaccinated then we expect no more than 5000 cases per day" and if the statement turns out to be false there will be no more vaccine impositions because it clearly will have turned out to be wrong.
If something doesn't work you shouldn't double down.
You're on a site centered around technology and don't seem to acknowledge the scientific process...
You cannot, with 100% accuracy, model a virus that is mutating in a population that includes the entire planet. We have things we know worked in the past, we try them, and we then modify our next move based on the results. We don't say "well we got that one wrong so now we're just not going to try anything". If every scientist took the approach you're suggesting we'd still be eating raw meat and living in caves.
Why is suing vital? What's insufficient about the existing National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program? https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html (I'm genuinely unfamiliar with any flaws it might have)
> Many rights have been taken away (some permanently)
What rights have been permanently removed? For that matter, what RIGHTS have been even temporarily suspended?
Many people consider the freedom of movement without constantly having to show papers to be a right, even if it's not explicitly codified in some law or constitution.
I could say I have a right to breathe air and someone would probably come around and tell me I'm wrong, but most people have some intuition for what a "natural" right is, and bristle when something encroaches on those.
I don't think anyone is stopping you from breathing air. Interstate travel is still open. I'm allowed to walk around my neighborhood. No one is requiring me to show "papers" for any of this.
I know not everyone has the same set of restrictions on them, so I'm genuinely trying to understand if I'm missing something about how other areas are behaving. I know Australia is at the "papers, please" curfew stage, and that definitely bothers me a lot, but I haven't heard of anything like that in the USA.
Australia didn’t get there over night. It was bit by bit. Pseudo-intellectuals would have said it’s a “slippery slope” back when people urged caution though.
Maybe the slope into authoritarianism is actually slippery.
If you experience severe enough side-effects from the vaccine to warrant a lawsuit, then you are still entitled to sue for compensation. The only thing that has changes is the entity who you are suing.
The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program makes this process much easier than a traditional lawsuit, as you merely have to convince a judge that your symptoms were likely caused by the vaccine. If they agree, you get paid.
If you sued Pfizer, then you'd probably be in a class action, going up against some of the best lawyers in the world, in a case that would drag out for a decade or more, likely have no real say in the case strategy, and would just have to accept whatever agreement the class representative agrees to.
> What's insufficient about the existing National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?
Max compensation is $250k. Life insurance values my life far more. Documents are under seal. Payouts are paid by the tax payer, not the manufacturers. Cases are heard by HHS and defended by DOJ (more taxes footing the bill). HHS has repeatedly refused to add certain injuries to their compensation tables even after CDC directed research indicates that such injuries have been proven to be causal (eg: motor tics in those that received thimerosol containing vaccines). Most cases now go years before any decision is made when the original stated purpose of the program was speedy settlements (6 months or less). The only expert witnesses that might be allowed to speak in secret vaccine court will likely be the scientists that were paid to design the vaccine in question by industry. Doctors that have testified against industry in this court (and others like it in other nations) have had their careers destroyed by retaliatory tactics.
I find it quite funny and sad that you need to ask “what’s wrong with this special, secret court?” What’s NOT wrong with a special, secret court designed to protect a massive industry? NO PRODUCT CLASS should be protected in this manner.
I'd heard others arguing for it and hadn't personally investigated it, so I appreciate the response!
I do think that given my own evaluation of the risks and rewards, the NVICP is perfectly sufficient for my own needs, but I can certainly see how one would be opposed to this on a systemic level, or if you believe the risk-reward ratio skews differently
> the NVICP is perfectly sufficient for my own needs
How do you reach this conclusion?
At a max $250k per life, paid through a secret court with the deck stacked against the plaintiff, it doesn't appear to be sufficient for anyone's needs.
It's a simple risk-reward calculation: the vaccine protects me from Covid-19. The chance of side effects is very low. The chance of severe, long-term complications that cause me more than $250K in damages is even lower.
Yeah, there's a tiny risk that I'll end up in a situation where I get screwed over, but I'm significantly more likely to suffer harm from Covid.
Your own calculations will vary, of course - this is just the math given my own risk factors.
> Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?
For me number one would be: if the CDC starts tracking re-infection rate in the non-vaccinated, and puts that data front and center as key KPIs on all their releases.
> What do you expect to see from that data alone? How much immunity and for how long the actual covid infection provides?
Yes, so we can deduce remaining susceptible.
The basic model in a pandemic is SIR. Susceptible, Infected, Recovered. Vaxed is a secondary factor.
We live in crazy land when I have to explain why we should be tracking Susceptible (computable when you know number infected and reinfection rate). (not to pick on you, just speaking about general trends I'm seeing)
Imagine if in computing someone asked, "why should we measure RAM usage?"
It's like, the very very basics.
Without that, you cannot accurately model and forecast the pandemic. And you can see for yourself how poorly the CDC is still modeling this when they said "vax work great! no masks!" and then "shit! vax don't work as great as we said, masks back on!" It's like they are pretending that natural immunity without a vax does not exist. One of the very basics in epi, both theoretically and empirically from mountains of data. It's crazy town, I tell you.
At the individual level you should know this to make the proper conditional decisions. There is scant benefit to be had from the vax if you were infected and recovered naturally (and yes, I've read the Kentucky study, and if that's someone's main argument they're a moron).
> I recent came across a technique for having a more substantial discussion and it was to ask: "Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?"
Sounds like you should take a look at Street Epistemology. It is a modern version of the Socratic method that asks questions similar to that. The goal is not to make your interlocutor change their mind necessarily, but instead to explore the reasons for the beliefs they hold and whether they may be sufficently justified or not.
Up-voted because you called out GP's comment for the subtle flame-bait that it is, and avoided feeding into it. There's a lot of emotional discussion here appealing to the ignorance of one group or another, and very little thoughtful discussion of nuances and tradeoffs.
> No doubt this will be the case for some. So, you've found a logical flaw in people's stated reasons for not wanting a vaccine. How does that help anything? In these kinds of debates, the actual goals or beliefs of both sides often differ from what they say.
This line of thought leads to the sentence immediately following the one you quoted: if there are a large percentage of people who were hesitant due to sincere safety concerns, the mountain of data showing that the vaccines are low-risk will translate into more of them getting vaccinated but if they're motivated by factors which are not affected by scientific data then the primary mechanism for ending the pandemic will be the kinds of requirements which are made possible by full approval. That either gets people vaccinated or removes them from many contexts where they pose risk to everyone else.
Right now there are a lot of concerns raised about vaccine safety on political and social media. Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are.
>Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are.
I have a friend in this group. There was no logical reason to not get vaccinated, her parents just kept regurgitating all the blatantly false conspiracy theories they were reading on the internet. The amount of times I heard "I'd get it if Bill Gates weren't involved, he's trying to track us" made my head spin.
Now work is requiring it to stay employed, so she's getting it. I'm both sad that's what it took, and happy that it was enough to overcome irrational fear mongering on the world wide web.
I think you can also be glad that someone changed their mind and got vaccinated, however reluctantly, and simultaneously be uncomfortable with that sort of coercion.
Telling someone you'll fire them if they don't get a shot isn't quite holding them down and jabbing them but it's not really a free personal choice either. Many people aren't in a position to just hop down the street into a new job.
> For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. People end up locking in to trivialities like approval or some study, but they just obscure the real debate.
Is government regulatory authority really the "real debate"? That too seems like an projected excuse, trivially proven by the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals.
I'm not saying that's what you think. Maybe you're a pure libertarian. But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach.
the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals.
FWIW, that's not even close to true among the Libertarians I know. And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few. The set of people who "believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals" may include a few actual Libertarians, but I would posit that most of the so-called "Libertarians" in that group have only the thinnest grasp on what the Libertarian perspective is about, probably haven't read/studied Libertarian ideology extensively (or anything else for that matter), and are merely repeating a few superficial talking points they heard somewhere that may - by happenstance - align with Libertarian perspectives.
But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach.
Those people sound more like the fringe of the "Tea Party" movement... populist, anti-establishment and perhaps "anti government" only in the sense that they don't like the current government. But these aren't, by and large, people who have rational, well-reasoned, comprehensive arguments for the need to reduce the size and scope of government across the board.
> And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few.
Yes, but obviously that's not a representative sample. My point was that the population of genuine libertarians for whom this seems like a first principles argument is dwarfed by the general population of Q-adjacent social conservatives who are happy to adopt libertarian framing but really just want the government to do what they want.
the population of genuine libertarians for whom this seems like a first principles argument is dwarfed by the general population of Q-adjacent social conservatives who are happy to adopt libertarian framing but really just want the government to do what they want.
On average, humans have a need to feel safe and part of a tribe. If you can convince yourself that your tribe is correct and that it is best to eat boiled eggs from the big end first and that the people who eat boiled eggs from the small end first are wrong, you will feel better about your place in the world. If you don't know if the big end or the little end is best you will feel uneasy with the world.
Obviously there are exceptions. Some people can objectively look at the situation and come to the conclusion that there are good reasons to start on both sides, and it really depends on your priorities. But those people are not part of the noise, it is the people who are desperate to feel part of a group who are the loudest.
I think you are right. People won't change their minds about it. But the question is, should they be allowed to control what goes inside their bodies? In my opinion, the answer is a huge YES OF COURSE.
When it's something like weed, sure. When it's something that is a public good on a social level, like vaccination, there's precedent for requiring it when medically safe.
The counter that is commonly used against that is "well when it affects other people's health, then you don't get to choose."
There are a lot of assumptions in that counterargument that people will hope you don't examine, for example, the assumption that the probability of a covid transmission ending in harm crosses the same probability threshold if, say, drunk driving ending in harm. I say it doesn't. And since the stakes are so high with what we're talking about allowing the government to do, the burden of proof is on needing to prove the individual's likelihood for serious harm being high.
I’d argue it’s higher given the exponential nature of disease transmission. While the odds of harm in who you directly transmit the virus to might be lower than the odds of you hurting someone drunk driving, if you play the tape forwards it’s almost a foregone conclusion that you’ll kill more people in the chain of people you infect than you would if you were drunk driving.
Also vaccine requirements aren’t anything new, so is the concern here that they’re mandating vaccines or this specific vaccine due to how new it is? If the latter, then what’s your bar for acceptance?
>While the odds of harm in who you directly transmit the virus to might be lower than the odds of you hurting someone drunk driving
You've introduced a new assumption though: that a unvaccinated person has and transmits covid. You must apply the probabilities to that initial assumption as well. Probability of having covid * probability of transmitting covid * probability that the person you transmit to has series harm done.
>Also vaccine requirements aren’t anything new
This is an argument that I've also seen but think appeals to "well we've been doing something similar already." I don't think that justification holds much water, especially in this time period where we are questioning a lot of foundational social assumptions.
To your direct question about bar for acceptance, I think people can generally establish a good bar, but they have to be given accurate probabilities, and those have been hidden from us in favor of vague fear mongering.
> the assumption that the probability of a covid transmission ending in harm crosses the same probability threshold if, say, drunk driving ending in harm.
You do realize that drunk driving is illegal, right? Do you think drunk driving should be legal because it's "unlikely" to cause harm to others?
> I say it doesn't.
628k confirmed deaths in the US from COVID. 37.8M confirmed infections. That's a death rate of 1.66%.
In 2016, 10,497 people died from drunk driving. 1 million people were arrested in 2016 for drunk driving. That's a rate of 1.0497%. So COVID is literally more dangerous than drunk driving.
Yes I do realize that drunk driving is illegal and I support that. I think you are misunderstanding my post, which is about doing the science to determine the actual probabilities involved with having and transmitting covid, along with the probabilities of serious harm. Then after multiplying all of those probabilities, comparing it with drunk driving as a relative measure.
That's an interesting point of view. If we know the rate of an event's outcome, in aggregate, is X, why is it important to know if A * B * C = X, or to know A/B/C at all? Totally sincere - I don't know if I'm missing something.
Imagine we're bottling soda in plastic bottles. There's an X% chance that a bottle explodes during the process. We also know if we over-fill a plastic bottle with CO2 the start it makes it slightly more elastic, and empirically it reduces that rate by Y%. We're not really sure why they were exploding, but we know that stretching them works.
Do you care about the other parts of the bottling process?
* Millions of COVID cases were never counted in those statistics; people who never got tested, due to being asymptomatic, low-symptomatic, having poor access to testing due to a vulnerable socioeconomic status, catching it before tests were widely available, and the natural rate of false-negatives due to self-swabs. It is very likely that, actually, the official statistics don't capture the majority of total COVID cases. This isn't a clerical rounding error; the real denominator in that death rate is somewhere 2x-10x lower than published, and we'll never know exactly where. [1] [2]
* This situation has not improved since the beginning of the pandemic. While testing is far more widely available now, the secondary issue of non-sterilizing vaccine immunity is now in play; the vaccines are by-and-large "leaky", but tend to result in far less severe, oftentimes even asymptomatic, infection. Many of these people are not getting tested, but are still getting COVID, and thus the count is underreported. Or, maybe they do get tested, and it comes back positive, but should that test actually be included in the overall COVID death rate? After-all, because the vaccines are good at reducing the chance of death, the COVID they have isn't quite the same as the COVID an unvaccinated individual would have. I don't know, but its a valid question which the broad statistics do not care about; its COVID, its included in the aggregates.
* Here's an interesting fact most people don't know about: testing sites, of course, gather data about the patient before a test. One of those pieces of information is: are you vaccinated, when were you vaccinated, which vaccine. Pretty basic stuff. Except, the systems CVS and Walgreens (two of the largest testing providers in the US) used to gather this data, for many months early in the vaccination cycle, did not ask this, or did not ask for all three pieces of information. It was only within the last month that Walgreens started asking for all three.
* Let's continue down this path of "fun reporting": I had COVID four weeks ago. The first question everyone asks is: Oh, you got a positive test, which variant was it? I've been asked this dozens of times, which makes me think many people don't generally realize: the nasal swabs cannot determine the variant. In fact, states do not run variant tests on every swab! Generally, they run variant tests in aggregate on a statistically significant subset of swabs, then report the data in a range of once a week, to once a month.
* Many state reporting agencies are actually really bad at differentiating between "positive tests" and "positive individuals". In other words, the most "responsible" citizens, those who get tested at the start, then once or even twice at the end of the 10 days, are in many jurisdictions actually screwing up the statistics.
* Many deaths were counted in those statistics. Oftentimes, over-counted, at least in the context you're using those statistics in (what is COVID's death rate?). First world hospitals, having pretty excellent access to these tests as the pandemic entered its teenage stage, entered a pattern of testing every admittance, even for symptoms unrelated to COVID. If they were positive, and they died for any reason, COVID was, of course, listed on their chart; it then got counted as a comorbidity, not the true cause of death. State reporting agencies still count it as a COVID death; they don't discriminate.
* But, of course, many deaths were undercounted; especially those who died before seeking medical care, or before testing was widely available.
* And that's not taking into consideration tertiary deaths caused by the state pandemic response, not COVID itself; millions of people delayed seeking regular and even urgent medical care due to fear of the virus. Many of these cases were not even at the behest of the patient, but rather due to medical offices delaying appointments or moving to virtual appointments, which offer a far lower standard of care. The impact to generalized mental health, social development of children, adolescents, and young adults, socioeconomic development of young adults, and many other facets of our society, will continue to be studied for the rest of our lives. Let's say it turns out that a broad, authoritarian lockdown saved a million lives, but it is also directly or indirectly traced to 20 million new cases of clinical depression; is a lockdown a good idea? Even with hard numbers like that its actually not obviously clear one-way or the other, and the worst part is: the people making these decisions never have the numbers. They're always acting on intuition; it takes years to even realize that this possibility even exists, at any magnitude, and we never know the true numbers. Did you know suicide is the 10th leading cause of death? Did you know that social isolation increases rates of clinical depression, which is positively correlated with suicide? Quarantine saved lives; how many did it cost? How many will it cost? But we're super duper sure it was the right call... right?
* Drunk driving is far, far, far more common than the arrest rates would suggest. Like, its actually insane how common drunk driving is. Cops are not gods. They do not catch everyone. One million people were arrested in 2016 for drunk driving; its likely that 50 million+ people drove above the legal limit in that same year, multiple times each.
This is just me, outlining the uncertainty of our world. Because here's the kicker, here's the Topic Of Choice: We should mandate vaccinations. You sure? Are you absolutely certain, beyond any doubt, knowing how much we don't know, that its actually the right call for our society?
You've thought through the medical consequences. There probably won't be any en mass, sure. What about social ones? We've got a nation of tens of millions of people who don't want to be vaccinated, where personal freedoms run deep for all its pros and cons, and you so strongly believe that our society will be Better if we force these people to undergo a medical treatment they don't want. Do you actually think this is such an easy decision? That there wouldn't be social consequences? That the mandate would go out, and everyone will forget that the government just shit all over their perceived freedoms (whether or not those freedoms are legitimate is irrelevant; they believe they have them, we live in a democracy, and there are 500 million+ guns in America).
The world is very, very complicated. You're making broad, authoritarian suggestions based on an unbelievably erroneous analysis of data, yet you were totally convinced you're right. The people in charge are totally convinced they're right. No one is right. No one has access to all the information. We live in a very complex, very scary world where even the most equipped, powerful, rich states cannot have even 2% of the information they need to make the right decisions.
> * But, of course, many deaths were undercounted; especially those who died before seeking medical care, or before testing was widely available.
Yeah, so I went with the stats we did have data for. I didn't speculate since I'm not omniscient and that's ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst. Both COVID cases and deaths are under-reported.
> Drunk driving is far, far, far more common than the arrest rates would suggest. Like, its actually insane how common drunk driving is. Cops are not gods. They do not catch everyone. One million people were arrested in 2016 for drunk driving; its likely that 50 million+ people drove above the legal limit in that same year, multiple times each.
The link I gave called out that 111M people self-reported drunk driving. That's an unreliable stat, so I went with the arrest rate which is a known quantity.
I wasn't "convinced" of anything. I chose the closest stats that we can get, which are definitely NOT perfect. What real-world data is "perfect"? Only when systems are self-reporting is data even close (e.g. latency, HTTP status counts, etc) and even those can be wrong due to log loss, servers failing, networks failing, etc.
You work with the data you have, and try to make informed decisions, instead of wildly guessing.
Making it illegal to harm someone by transmitting a disease to them, and all of the logistical problems with proving it, makes more sense than mandating the covid vaccine.
Triple health insurance premiums for people who refuse to vaccinate, like car insurance companies do when you get caught driving drunk. We can keep our precious "bodily autonomy" while still making sure reckless behavior is costly.
Not opposed to it, as long as the premiums are actually reflect the probabilities and cost of the harm. You words like "precious bodily autonomy" make me think you are looking at this from a pov of malice though, as in, let's try to financially ruin people.
Exactly right. You get to make a choice, but choices come with consequences. Don't want a vaccine? OK, but be prepared to be rejected from places that would prefer you have one.
The problem is that it’s not that simple because your choices significantly impact other people: I can’t choose whether or not to receive the viruses you spread, so I have an interest in you spreading far fewer of them. My 4 year old child can’t be vaccinated so he, along with many immune-compromised people or those with certain medical conditions, is dependent on other people getting vaccinated to sharply reduce spread. Anyone who needs medical care is dependent on those facilities not being overloaded by people who chose to remain at high risk for a preventable disease.
This is not new: only the most libertarian fringes reject the idea that living in a society comes with obligations. We avoided millions of life-altering diseases with vaccination and politicizing medical care is going to go down in history as the worst move since the CIA decided to use public health workers as a cover story.
You're legally an adult, you have full legal control over your body, you're legally fully responsible for your choices, and you're not in school any longer.
I think so, but note that the NPR piece you linked to is based on obsolete pre-Delta data in the United States and by all accounts hospitals are seeing more sick kids than they did last year (some combination of known greater virulence and what the CDC classes as probable greater severity).
The best argument for treating COVID more seriously is that we have a better understanding of influenza’s long-term effects. In both cases, however, I’d argue that it makes sense to require vaccination simply to reduce the impact on childcare and education: even if dying from the flu is relatively low-risk, it’s stressful and disruptive when it rips through a class and vaccination is quite cheap in comparison.
Your mindset is deeply concerning and rather evil in its supremacist belief you are justified in imposing things on others against their will.
You may believe you are justified in that imposition, as all authoritarian types are, but one thing is for sure, the precedent to overturn the most fundamental concepts of freedom you demand be imposed on all, WILL be used against the useful idiots in short order, as is always the case when they have outlived their usefulness, having been manipulated by fear and promise, sticks and carrots.
Not drinking alcohol doesn't cause any issues. We've had people who've lived 100+ years and never drank. We don't have that experience with covid vaccines.
Is it “supremacist” to say you have wear pants in public or safely prepare the food you serve customers? Is it “authoritarian” to deprive you of the freedom to defecate in a public street, smoke in a restaurant, drive a car which doesn’t meet safety standards, or spray toxic chemicals on your property?
The answer, of course, is no because living in a society requires moderating your behavior when it affects other people. Those real examples also notably did not turn into the slippery slopes you’re trying to scare people with because public support isn’t unconditional – as we’ve seen, there are very real limits to what they can require and it involves significant public debate. Where real authoritarians do cause problems, it’s a misattribution error to say those problems are because they have health codes rather than correctly recognizing that an authoritarian government will manifest in all kinds of areas.
Except, the current choice of vaccines appear to have issues offering broad sterilizing immunity. Vaccinated people are still "getting" COVID Delta, often with zero symptoms, but are still spreading it.
So they're not even all that good at providing the one thing companies may argue is necessary to go back-to-work; stopping spread. Similar with cruise lines and airplanes requiring it. Yes, the vaccines are very good at saving peoples' lives, but industry doesn't care about that, and it alone is not a good enough reason to mandate it.
You say everyone needs to get vaccinated so we can protect the people who can't get the vaccine or for whom it doesn't work. I have very bad news for you; the vaccine won't help. You can still get COVID, and you can still spread it to your four year old. I can still get it and spread it to my immunocompromised sister. It sucks. That's the reality we live in.
I'll let you in on a little secret: FDA approval was never important to the people who won't get a COVID vaccine. They no longer trust the FDA, but they know that people like you have blind faith in all US health authorities so it was the easiest answer to get you off their backs.
Personally I won't go near a COVID vaccine until they're eligible for the VICP.
Or they have other reasons for not getting it, reasons that are personal/mocked/dismissed by others, and the emergency approval was the easiest way to get these street preachers to make like a tree.
> Both vaccines were highly effective during this study period against SARS-CoV-2 infection (mRNA-1273: 86%, 95%CI: 81-90.6%; BNT162b2: 76%, 95%CI: 69-81%) and COVID-19 associated hospitalization (mRNA-1273: 91.6%, 95% CI: 81-97%; BNT162b2: 85%, 95% CI: 73-93%). However, in July, the effectiveness against infection was considerably lower for mRNA-1273 (76%, 95% CI: 58-87%) with an even more pronounced reduction in effectiveness for BNT162b2 (42%, 95% CI: 13-62%). Notably, the Delta variant prevalence in Minnesota increased from 0.7% in May to over 70% in July whereas the Alpha variant prevalence decreased from 85% to 13% over the same time period.
The real question is about future strains. COVID was pretty much completely stable for over a year (minor variants without anything super significant changing). Once the vaccine was introduced, a bunch of variants started popping up.
It makes perfect evolutionary sense. Loads of variations appear in every infected individual. The most effective version takes over and is most likely to be passed on to others.
Most vaccines are so effective that the virus never gains a foothold. With the mRNA vaccines, people still get sick. You get tons of mutations and the original strain is no longer the most efficient because of the vaccine. so now there's tons of room for variants to form which work around the vaccine. Once an effective bypass happens, it takes off and you instantly get a new strain, but more resistant.
At the current rate, we're only a few short jumps away from a completely ineffective vaccine.
There were already 7 known variations when the vaccines were introduced. Furthermore, none of the vaccines currently approved for use (at least in the US) have the live virus. So vaccines are not "causing mutations". Mutations happen during replication within infected cells. The vaccines will greatly reduce the number of cells that will get infected. So vaccines reduce mutations and chances of strains to take hold. Unvaccinated people who become infected are what will fuel strains.
2. You linked to an old version that says "However, in July, the effectiveness against infection was considerably lower", in the current version the same sentence reads "In July, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization has remained high"
It'll be so easy to walk away from a company if they tried to force me to do Anything. But i make tons of money off all this fearmongering, it's great. I can't wait until you have to take a 4th shot, money all the way to the bank. I caught covid for a day, still showing the strongest markers, i never noticed it, all I did was take vitamins and exercise, good friend got the vaccine, still can't walk, sick as a dog.
> I caught covid for a day, still showing the strongest markers, i never noticed it, all I did was take vitamins and exercise, good friend got the vaccine, still can't walk, sick as a dog.
Your anecdotal evidence of 2 people sure is convincing! Everyone should do what you're doing.
Buy far out options on antiviral companies? Too late bro, the rate of climb is way down over the past 3 scare runs, which really pumped the price it was great, plus all the obvious drops where you could have made a decent amount on short calls after each news segment about everything opening up :D hahaha I mean seriously dude, you wish you bought in.
Also anecdotes are all there is right now, that's society right now, either you're making money while people pick sides and sell the merchandise like t-shirts that say "I'm vaxxed and I'm awesome" on Amazon, go buy one. Give me your money. I made money on the Trump crap too :D
Anyways you're all suckers and those of us who give 0 craps about sides are laughing all the way to the bank. Keep it up, once you've burned it all down I can buy it up for a pence.
I know one person who walked away from a job months ago because he figured he'd be required to vaccinate, and another who is prepared to walk away if her job requires it.
I don't think this is a decision they made lightly.
I have always felt that a lot of anti-vaxxers will quietly get the vaccine when they meet back with the real world rather Facebook. But maybe that's wishful thinking.
RNA vaccines have decades of failures. Following the normal drug approval processes 100% of RNA attempts have failed.
The only reason we got the vaccine today is because various governments got 'emergency approval' and therefore skipping why they have failed for decades.
Why is it banned to discuss this? Why is it unreasonable for people to be cautious about this vaccine?
I know many people who are against this vaccine who historically do get the flu shot and the normal vaccines. Are they being unreasonable? Shouldn't we be allowed to discuss such things?
The censorship over 'covid misinformation' and banning discussion over these reasonable discussions... is in of itself reason to not get it.
Not to mention how many times has Fauci been caught lying now? Lets not discuss stuff like gain of function. Just straight up lies that have been admitted to?
>I think a huge factor will be how many employers, colleges, etc. are now willing and legally able to require vaccination. It’s one thing to say you trust something you read on Facebook more than your doctor and quite another to walk away from a job because of it.
Now being coercive on top of this?
I think it's pretty reasonable to discuss some issues. Yet for some reason we have come here.
I took J&J and I agree with you. Why can't be people be scared. I don't judge anyone who won't take the vaccine.
I will say that we should have focused more on treatments instead of vaccines and then had a more traditional vaccine built on proven technology. Then we could have gotten everyone protected at the same time, stopping the variants.
J&J and AZ are more traditional vaccines. People have been looking for treatments hence the HCQ and invermectin investigations. Look at how long it took them to make steroids a standard treatment option. We now have a variant that is more contagious (delta) I’m waiting for the variant that is more deadly.
> A virus doesn't become more contagious and deadly.
This is a misconception actually. It really just depends. It is fair to say that if a virus is more deadly in a shorter time period it is less likely to become more contagious, but it isn't necessarily true.
Especially with viruses like COVID-19 which are spreadable before symptoms start.
What I find most sad about your post is that you had to open by stating your vaccination status. So we effectively reached a point where you are only allowed to be critical of vaccination after you got yourself a shot. This is so weird and frightening, I dont know what to say. Things said and claimed by all sides in the past 1 1/2 years have made me really stop believe in humanity. It feels like a bad dream or a strange fiction story. One of these were you end up fully immersed. And you want to wake up, but this time, you realize you can't.
People are seriously writing here that they think if people are being fired, that pressure will "hopefully change their minds". Are you aware how cruel you are? You wish someone to loose their income just because they dont have the same opinion then you? When did this happen? When did we start to produce people like this? When did we stop to care? Did I really miss this wave of right-wing-minded people hiding on the left side?
>What I find most sad about your post is that you had to open by stating your vaccination status.
The political status of this website requires me to disclaimer. I expect even with the disclaimer I will be attacked regardless. If not downvoted to the point that my words are hidden. Which isn't much of a prediction because this post is already downvoted.
>This is so weird and frightening, I dont know what to say. Things said and claimed by all sides in the past 1 1/2 years have made me really stop believe in humanity.
Political status/motivation. I wouldn't let it damage your position in humanity.
>People are seriously writing here that they think if people are being fired, that pressure will "hopefully change their minds". Are you aware how cruel you are? You wish someone to loose their income just because they dont have the same opinion then you? When did this happen? When did we start to produce people like this? When did we stop to take?
Don't go on reddit and look at this. They are cheering as antivaxxers are getting covid and dying. They are ecstatic to see people losing their jobs because of vaccination status. 6% of people cant get the vaccine but they dont care.
reddit consists mostly of edgy teenagers that have absolutely no experience with real life. The NH community would do well to start putting it out of its' mind.
TBH I'm pretty disappointed to see the commentary on HN cite reddit and wikipedia as often as they do.
I dont feel it is really relevant how many people "can" get the vaccine. First of all, if you can/should get it with your current medical condition is also a fluid thing. One doctor might advice against, another might advice you to get the shot anyway. So this is no clear cut number. There is also the social pressure. So someone might be adviced by their doctor to not get the shot, but they feel so much peer pressure that they decide to take the risk anyway. Ignoring all these issues and claiming their might be a clear cut number just underlines the complete lack of empathy and understanding of how humans work.
The point is that vaccination is still not mandatory, but vaxed people behave towards unvaxed as if it were.
But whats most devastating about all of this is that it made anxious people go fully nuts and break out of their protective shell. I have an axious mother, so I know a bit or two about how anxiety can have bad effects on the people surrounding the anxious. Most of these people were able to "hide" most of their issues and be mostly functioning humans. The pandemic has changed them into little political activists, and has destroyed most of their remaining true social connections. I cant be bothered to spend time if over-anxious people anymore. Life is too short.
They've always been there but Covid and the ensuing hysteria has brought the authoritarians out of the woodwork. They're loud and proud right now.
> Did I really miss this wave of right-wing-minded people hiding on the left side?
Authoritarianism isn't unique to one side of the aisle and this comment speaks to the decades of FUD being spread by those on the left that anyone who isn't lockstep with the progressive agenda is "literally hitler".
America is supposedly a country full of antivaxers. Yet every day they give out 3/4 of a million shots (7 day average from google’s tracker). So I think there is a good case to be made for small victories changing minds.
> America is supposedly a country full of antivaxers.
And there's zero evidence supporting that premise. The US has historically been superior to Europe when it comes to vaccinations for example (look at Europe's long history of bad measles outbreaks). It's the difference between garbage propaganda slung at the US and reality. In reality the US has a tremendous long-term track record of making and utilizing vaccines, which is also why the US didn't disregard developing and distributing vaccines for this pandemic, and in fact was one of the world leaders in both categories.
I'll let you in on a little secret: FDA approval was never important to the people who won't get a COVID vaccine. It was simply the easiest way to get smug, condescending know-it-alls like you to stop bugging them.
Personally I won't go near a COVID vaccine until they're eligible for the VICP.
This is misrepresenting the science similarly to arguing that seatbelts are useless because some people still die in crashes. We've always known that vaccination is not 100% effective but it's also not 0% — the data is complicated since it depends on the people involved, the strain, and environmental factors but it very strongly suggests that vaccinated people are less likely to spread than the unvaccinated.
The facebook posts typically reference one of several organised groups of hundreds of working doctors, some of whom claim to have directly observed high levels of concerningly-serious adverse reaction, even among small sample groups (eg, small town doctors who vaccinated many in the town).
If a doctor is recommending you don't take it based on their experience and expertise, it carries a bit more weight than "something you read on facebook". And if you can't trust doctors now, who may even be your own doctor, why would you trust anyone else, or "some other doctor"?
This is not something that can be resolved by bullying or mandates. It can only be resolved by open dialogue and debate between the two sides, which thus far, has been prevented.
Censorship and stifling of debate only hardens the opinions of either side.
It also makes no sense - many areas have massive resistance, no matter what has been thrown at them - proving the fear of "if we let them talk freely they'll influence others and go off and do whatever they want!" isn't founded. Basic human psychology, along with experience, shows the reverse has proven true.
If you stop people who are suspicious of something from being able to talk about what they're suspicious of, they get even more suspicious of it.
Certainly, there is no other time in history widespread censorship has resulted in anything other than widespread division, suspicion and ultimately, violence.
If employers mandate based on this approval, it will likely just result in mass walk-outs.
> This is not something that can be resolved by bullying or mandates. It can only be resolved by open dialogue and debate between the two sides, which thus far, has been prevented.
Your second claim is massively untrue: all of the information is public and actual medical doctors overwhelmingly support vaccination and bend over backwards trying to help patients understand it (note that most of the high profile objectors either aren't real MDs and/or are speaking far outside of their area of expertise). The problem is that many people are defining “open dialogue” as meaning that untrue statements they make need to be taken as seriously as the consensus of the scientific community.
The first is rather debatable: mandates have been highly effective everywhere they've been tried because they shift the cost calculation to “do I feel strongly enough about this that I'm willing to give up something I like?”.
Presently, no one can post certain peer-reviewed science from well-known and respected medical journals on any social media account, or speak of them on YT, because of widespread censorship of certain topics.
It's not possible to have anything remotely resembling a "debate" in such a climate.
Mandates have not been effective. Nothing that's been done can be said to have been "effective". We are apparently in an even worse place now, even with vaccines, than we were last year.
In reality though, we aren't.
The pathology of the virus is well-understood, as are the mechanisms to defeat it. But we're not allowed to talk about it.
It'd all be over in weeks if we were - as we saw in India recently, in all provinces but the one that stuck with the dogma.
Your Honor, I never force any of my employees to give me a blowjob.
I just let her know that she would be fired if she chose not to suck my penis. In my view this is a matter of public health and safety. Everyone is sick of these restrictive office measures, so the only way to get through this situation is regular blowjobs given to management for stress relief. Please understand we don't want to do this, but in these trying times it's important everyone does their part and gets on their knees.
Same logic about "not forcing anyone" applied to sexual assault wouldn't go well.
It will happen like clockwork. And once we get more subsequent variants with the current vaccine not working and requiring a booster, the perceived failure of the vaccine will be blamed on Trump with Operation Warp Speed.
Expecting the public to have confidence in these vaccines is demanding a level of subservience and blind faith that most reasonable people are unwilling to provide.
The link you posted cites and links the FDA meeting they had for public discussion. It was almost a 9 hour meeting (which they have a youtube recording of), to say that wasn't transparent seems... inaccurate. Did you not read through the citations from your own source?
>Interested persons may present data, information, or views, orally or in writing, on issues pending before the committee.
I know very little about this, but could someone give a good explanation on how is a drug officially approved for mass use when the manufacturer of the drug still hasn't finished their testing?
It has emergency approval. The CDC decided the result of waiting for a full approval would likely cost more than allowing it early.
Also to be fair it's not like they just rushed it out the door. There are probably very few things on the market (short of fully approved pharmaceuticals) that have been through more testing than these "rushed" vaccines.
A great point. The same people decrying a vaccine that has been safely administered to nearly a billion people at this point and extensively studied will be the first ones to try all sorts of untested homeopathic and "alternative" nonsense.
Indeed, there are plenty of people who "believe in science" and trust authority figures, who believe in various forms of woo.
We can do better than guilt by association. It's a very weak argument, and turns more people away from potential vaccination. In fact insulting the remaining audience is worse than preaching to the choir, because it even turns away people who were previously 100% on one's side.
This this a Bifurcation of the issue. lumping people whom; have a cation bias, are alt medicine nuts, classic anti vaxers, etc, together shuts down discourse and divides people.
I don't know why people are disagreeing with you. Look how many people are begging for "thoughts and prayers", a totally useless gesture with no medical benefits. Religious cures are an example of alternative nonsense. Ironically, it's not untested; we know that it doesn't work.
Without claiming any knowledge of this particular case, the FDA has processes for accelerating approval for medication for which mass efficacy testing can only be done in the long-term, but testing for adverse side-effects is already complete. The recent approval of Alzheimer's medication[0] is one example of that.
From a quick Google, it seems that Phase III trials are about comparing a new treatment to existing alternatives, rather than monitoring side-effects. Perhaps the testing simply can't be complete before 2023, since it involves checking long-term immunity? In this case, the FDA may have approved the vaccine because they are confident that the risk of negative side-effects is sufficiently small, and that the vaccine gives some benefit - even if testing hasn't established exactly how much.
A drug should be approved once it is very likely causing more good than harm. But obviously that doesn't mean you should stop researching that drug.
What's happening here makes perfect sense. We have more than enough information to conclude that it is extremely likely that the vaccine helps a lot and causes little harm. However if there are any rare side effects then we'd still like to know that, therefore it is a good thing that the patients in the trials are still being observed for anything unusual.
> A drug should be approved once it is very likely causing more good than harm.
Err, that sounds really scary and wrong to me. Seems to me that a drug should be approved when all the side effects are known, results are well characterized among a large sample set over a sufficiently long time frame, and it is determined that the drug is "safe" in the absolute sense.
It may be the case that we are better off taking a vaccine in a pandemic _even though we are not 100% sure it is safe_ due to the opportunity cost, and that's what emergency authorizations are for.
Even if the FDA really did their due diligence here, it will not convince anyone who was not already convinced; it is obvious that they were going to approve it no matter what, because the political fallout of not approving it after so many people have taken it would permanently destroy what trust remains in the US public health system.
> Seems to me that a drug should be approved when all the side effects are known, results are well characterized among a large sample set over a sufficiently long time frame, and it is determined that the drug is "safe" in the absolute sense.
How long is sufficient? How large of a test group is sufficient?
In the "absolute" sense, there is no known drug that is safe. That is extremist thinking that only serves to muddy the waters of the actual debate, which should be: "how safe is safe enough?"
> we are not 100% sure it is safe
Note that "100% sure" does not mean "100%" safe. So how much safety do you need a 100% assurance for? How do you quantify the safety?
> that sounds really scary
How does this not just describe life in general? And how does that help policymaking? I don't think our species would have made it to the agricultural revolution if that was the overriding force for anything.
> it will not convince anyone who was not already convinced
This also strikes me as a poor consideration for any policymaker, as they likely know that at the onset to any such policymaking. This adds nothing new or interesting to the debate.
Its not my job to figure out "how safe" or "how certain", but I can definitely say with confidence that "more safe than harmful" and "more likely than not" are both really bad answers.
Unfortunately that is how the world works. It is not all or nothing, it is sets of probabilities and tradeoffs. You will rarely be able to solve complicated problems if your criteria are all or nothing. Few medicines are 100% safe. Nobody can predict the future. I'm sorry you're scared, so are many people, but this is the best option we have right now. I struggle to think of a better choice.
I think it is, when you read Pfizer's contract and fact0r in things like "Governments have to pay, regardless of whether or not the shipment arrives: on time, damaged, or at all". I suggest you browse their leaked contract: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20616251-albanian-pf...
Yes, that's operation warp speed and it worked great. That's the reason the US.had vaccine enough to go around while Canada was struggling to get everyone their first dose.
>Governments have to pay, regardless of whether or not the shipment arrives: on time, damaged, or at all
Wouldn't this be standard language in any contract? If I buy a widget and they ship it to me, if it gets damaged in transit, or lost in transit I still have to pay the producer, I then go after the delivery company (and/or their insurance) for compensation.
I don't really know how to determine a fair price other than letting them compete with Moderna et al.
Traditional flu jabs apparently [0] cost the NHS £5-8 (<$11) per dose; the Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine seems in-line with that charging $2-5 non-profit for the duration of the pandemic [1]. But I don't know how comparable that is to Pfizer's given that the latter's different, newer (mRNA) tech AIUI? (Perhaps that's a disservice to the researchers at AZ/Oxford, I don't know.)
> Control group(s) were given vaccines after 14 days
I saw some conspiracy theory that said this weeks ago and just shook my head at how ridiculous that would be. At least it seemed like a conspiracy theory because my view of control group was apparently something else.
Emergency use authorization, for a vaccine that was never tested on humans, and both Pfizer and Moderna eliminated the control groups?
What the hell!? There must be… other or new control groups right? You can’t really have phase3 trials and reference nothing for control can you? What will they reference?
> Pfizer and BioNTech speed up timeline for offering Covid-19 vaccine to placebo volunteers
> Pfizer and its partner BioNTech plan to offer their Covid-19 vaccine to any clinical trial volunteer who received placebo by March 1, several months earlier than initially planned.
and NPR[2]:
> Long-Term Studies Of COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt By Placebo Recipients Getting Immunized
> Tens of thousands of people who volunteered to be in studies of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are still participating in follow-up research. But some key questions won't be easily answered, because many people who had been in the placebo group have now opted to take the vaccine.
I don't see the link between these articles and the control groups receiving the vaccine after 14 days? It seems here that Pfizer gave permission for participants to get vaccinated on March 1st, which is 8 months after the start of phase 3 trials.
Imagine you volunteered for a very experimental trial for the greater good and then were told that you were given a placebo and now cannot receive a vaccine for several years and will have to be more cautious. You can see in the article that a volunteer from the trial is strongly advocating for giving the participants access to vaccines.
Obviously this complicates the statistical analysis (you can try to use a double-blind crossover study to get some statistical power out of this, but clearly the messaging gets more complicated), but I'm not seeing anything about a "14 day" timeline.
It's also worth noting that any study participant can just freely choose to break the study and go in and get vaccinated (lowering the measured efficacy of the vaccine)_whenever they want. Giving them a concrete date is a good alternative to that.
It seems you can force people to get a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic. France is dealing with massive unrest [0] and are hemorrhaging medical staff [1] because they mandated vaccines for medical professionals (which doesn't make sense, the vaccine doesn't prevent a person from spreading the virus [2]).
From the December FDA report: "The expected duration of study participation is approximately 25 months".
At the time they dissolved the control group, the fatality rate in control and placebo were the same. By their very own data they did not have a strong case that they would be "condemning...a fraction of the control group to die.". One would have to make a leap. A plausible leap, but a leap nonetheless.
Let's assume though that the fatality rate across the population for COVID was 1%, a very high number, to be conservative. So in that case you'd expect ~150 preventable fatalities in the control group. We now have ~that many fatalities, in a single state (Massachusetts), from COVID-19, in people who were "fully vaccinated".
You can do the math and extrapolate that there are now orders of magnitude more deaths from "breakthrough infections" than might have been in the placebo control group. If we had known that the efficacy of these vaccines was going to fall significantly, might some of those deaths have been prevented? I think there's an argument to be made there.
Now we have statisticians scrambling over themselves with complex methods to figure out what the hell is going on, when we could have had the gold standard which would be quite simple to interpret, if we had kept those control groups.
Now some argue it would have been completely impractical to maintain that control group amidst a mass vax campaign (I think we should have tried, regardless). I think there's room to debate that. But in that case I think we need a vast upgrade to our data infra, because giving up the placebo control group was a huge loss (for truth and science, at least).
That doesn’t actually seem right though. You have control groups at least through all phases of trials to make sure “the treatment works”. That’s literally the point of the control.
Especially now that we know the vaccines don’t completely work to stop infection or prevent symptoms or spread.
I’m all for the vaccines, but it seems crazy that they didn’t even wait until phase3 was over for a new type that has never been tested on humans before.
If the argument is “the control petiole were at risk”, they should have been told their vaccine was placebo and ask for volunteers to remain in control, seems like flat out offering them real shot defeats the point, doesn’t it?
The only reason there is fear is because people keep posting stories like these without putting them into context.
It has been clear for a while now that the Pfizer vaccine works and is safe. Just because Pfizer has chosen to keep collecting data doesn't make that there is any doubt about that. This is also why control groups have been given the option to get vaccinated too. It would be highly questionable to prevent them from getting vaccinated when we know that some of them might die without the vaccine.
And Pfizer doesn't "make" 1.9b of 100m doses. They might have 1.9b in revenue but producing the vaccines isn't free. And 1.9b is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the savings we have already seen thanks to the vaccine.
"It has been clear for a while now that the Pfizer vaccine works and is safe."
Yes, except there is an established process for quantifying "clear for a while now" and it involves sufficient time and control groups. That process isn't being followed and it is concerning for a number of reasons, including the effect of political pressure on expedited drug approvals in the future now that this precedent is being set. The elected leaders capable of bringing such political pressure to bear are invested in the very companies which stand so much to gain by relaxing the time-tested regulatory approval process. This is bad science and bad governance.
Many drug and vaccine approvals in the past have been done before the trial has run its full course. Many drug and vaccine trials have given the placebo group the real drug once safety and efficacy is clear - before the end of the trial.
This is not new, and frankly I’m a little surprised to see such conspiracy theories on HN.
Remdesivir [0], for one, which received Fast Track and Priority Review designation from the FDA. It was also noted in a 2019 Wall Street Journal article [1] that the majority of new drug approvals are now done through a Fast Track process.
Garasdil was approved by the FDA in 2006 and, as this press release shows [0], continued running studies into it as a condition of the approval. They conceded that full results could not be available before approval; “While the study period was not long enough for cervical cancer to develop, the prevention of these cervical precancerous lesions is believed highly likely to result in the prevention of those cancers.”
From what I can gather, the Phase III study participants continued to receive follow-up checks for at least a decade.
The completion date was changed multiple times since April 2020 and they clearly appended booster trials to the existing trials and pushed back the dates.
I would like to see an example of previous trials where the placebo group was invalidated prematurely by informing them and giving them the actual drug. If this is common practice I'm not aware of it.
The use of placebos in controlled clinical trials must be justified by a positive risk-benefit analysis, and the subjects must be fully informed of the risks involved in the assignment to the placebo group.
Continued assignment of subjects to placebo is unethical, once there is good evidence to support the efficacy of the trial therapy.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) since there was such strong evidence to prove the efficacy, it became unethical for the continued assignment of placebo.
The good old "is unethical to do a double blind study". This one is by far the best invention of the Big Pharma PR departments, you basically cannot make the study that will prove for sure that their product is safe (and stick it to all those anti vaxxers once and for all) Talk about having your cake and eating it too...
This happened with low-dose Aspirin for prevention of heart-attacks and strokes. The protective effect was so profound that they considered it unethical to let the control group proceed without it.
Here's one. I'm sure you can find others ("terminated for benefit"). For statistical reasons, terminating a trial for benefit is relatively uncommon (most terminations occur for other reasons):
Surely the point of a placebo in this case was to measure effectiveness rather than detect long term side effects. There are other methods of establishing a control such as comparing to the general population.
The quality of discourse here is so so low, disguising antivax stands as concerns for the speed of the vaccine approval while disregarding simple verifiable facts such that 98%[0] of the people on ICU are unvaccinated
One aspect of the time element is not "this much time has past" but rather "the subjects have had enough exposures to the virus". For some viruses, like HIV, this may take a long time to accomplish. But for COVID, in the middle of a pandemic, it doesn't take that long to accomplish.
1. The FDA requires six months of clinical data to establish safety before FDA approval. The normal requirements for FDA approval absolutely were followed
2. With longer-term studied it's not like we don't know anything about them until it's complete. Data is released on a rolling basis so we know how the results of the studies so far, and (surprise!) data so far say it's safe.
And in the cases where there have been question marks that have come up about safety (AZ, JJ), even with miniscule likelihood, those have quickly been withdrawn.
It definitely hasn’t been clear “for a while now” that the vaccine is safe. They do seem to be effective, though.
It really depends on what your definition of “safe” is. The vaccines have stated side effects, some of which can severe. The side effects are relatively rare, but non-zero.
The other component is time. We’ve proven that the vaccine is mostly safe…for at least a year out. After that, we have no data.
You don’t have to look that far back to find things that were deemed safe at one time have disastrous consequences years down the line. Cigarettes, asbestos, etc.
Only someone totally ignorant of the difference between a vaccine and a pain drug, in terms of how they are tested and approved, would use 'what about vioxx' as an indictment of vaccines.
Nothing here is an indictment of vaccines per se. However, it is legitimate to have concerns over a process the rules stated at the outset were thrown out, possibly for personal profit and political motivations.
> Shortly before the FDA approved Vioxx in 1999, drug maker Merck launched a study it hoped would prove that Vioxx was superior to older painkillers, because it caused fewer gastrointestinal problems. Instead, the study would eventually show Vioxx could be deadly, causing heart attacks and strokes.
> Five years after Vioxx's launch, Merck withdrew the drug from the market. By that time, Merck had sold billions of dollars of the drug worldwide.
Getting Covid is not safe, like at all, so it’s so bizarre to me that anyone would look at the safety profile of a vaccine in a vacuum. Any medication has rare side effects. Tylenol has rare side effects that can be severe. Covid has direct effects that are common and severe.
Cigarettes and asbestos are not vaccines and are thus evaluated totally differently (and at a totally different point in time). In past vaccines monitoring, bad things happen right away versus long term:
“Serious side effects that could cause a long-term health problem are extremely unlikely following any vaccination, including COVID-19 vaccination. Vaccine monitoring has historically shown that side effects generally happen within six weeks of receiving a vaccine dose. For this reason, the FDA required each of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines to be studied for at least two months (eight weeks) after the final dose. Millions of people have received COVID-19 vaccines, and no long-term side effects have been detected.” [1]
I never claimed getting covid was safe, only that we don’t have long-term data on the vaccines.
Re: things like Tylenol, the difference is we have a ton of long term data on that, and the interactions with things like alcohol or other drugs are well known.
The fact that the FDA made a point to say that the vaccine was studied for eight whole weeks is worrisome, for something that most of the population will be forced or at least coerced into taking.
Yes the vaccine has been proven to be safe for most adults in the short-term. But blanket statements like this over-simplify the reality of the situation.
People need to be aware that for certain sub-populations (eg pediatrics & pregnant women), there is insufficient scientific evidence - in terms of clinical trials and longitudinal studies - to conclude that the benefits of vaccination always and universally outweigh the risks.
Until consensus has been established in the scientific literature - and even after that - everyone should be making their own decisions based on personal risk evaluation with the consultation of doctors and other medical professionals.
For pregnant women the conclusion has been in for a while that COVID-19 leads to a higher incidence of hospitalizations and complications and it has been advice from OBGYN's to get vaccinated with Pfizer ASAP: source - my wife is currently pregnant and we were told this by our OBGYN, who also suggested Astrazeneca would be unlikely to be harmful but couldn't professionally recommend it as their were no formal studies (but a large number of pregnant women have been vaccinated with it not knowing they were pregnant).
For pregnant women the current data is that vaccination is conclusively necessary because they cannot possibly hope to avoid COVID-19 infection when giving birth and while pregnant are much more likely to be severely impacted by COVID-19.[1]
> The conclusion has been in for a while that COVID-19 leads to a higher incidence of hospitalizations and complications
Yes just about any symptomatic illness is going to lead to hospitalization and complications during pregnancy.
I understand how the language on the CDC page you cited may lead you to believe that vaccines are conclusively recommended, but take a look at this page from the CDC [1] (updated August 11th) for a more balance appraisal. They say that evidence about the safety is "limited" but "early data" is reassuring. Almost all of the links on the page you cited are to ongoing trials. It's a misrepresentation of science to say that the recommendation to vaccinate pregnant women is conclusive.
And if we're trading anecdotes, my wife's OBGYN advised her not to get vaccinated yet, because it's unclear what the long-term risks are for mother and baby, and because it's unclear if vaccination provides any additional benefits for mothers who have acquired immunity through natural infection.
If you can provide any citations to primary sources supporting your claim that vaccination is conclusively recommended I would appreciate it - I'm keeping an open mind here.
If your wife has had COVID before she got pregnant, or during and recovered just fine, then that's a very different proposition to my wife who has not had COVID. You're burying the lead hard and frankly if you want to argue against the CDC and ATAGI[1] (the Australia advisory board) then the onus is on you to provide the extraordinary evidence that they shouldn't be believed.
Your proposition is "a virus many times deadlier then the flu in a target group who have more serious outcomes from anything, what could go wrong?"
And your evidence is: "well for someone who currently has effective natural immunity.."
I think he’s arguing against absolutism. If you’re pregnant and have had COVID or can keep your chances of catching it low by staying/working from home the potential risks probably outweigh the benefit of the vaccine.
Just to be clear, by the standard you're proposing there's also no scientific evidence that posting on Hacker News is safe. There is no scientific evidence that the internet is safe. There is no scientific evidence that wearing a mask is safe.
There is, of course, an INCREDIBLE amount of EVIDENCE for all of these things being safe (including the vaccine). There has simply never been a 100% complete full evaluation of safety to the rigorous standards of an academic paper.
But it's really important to understand that we know TONS of things without having that rigor, and we don't hold the vast majority of our life to that standard.
Heck, we outright know that driving IS dangerous, ridiculously so compared to taking a vaccine, but we still allow that.
Had to up-vote because this is hilarious, thanks for sharing. As a critique of evidence based medicine they've clearly demonstrated their point, but it's obviously philosophical and the tradeoffs of practical medical interventions are no where near as clear cut as the case of falling from the sky without a parachute.
We have a known-safe vaccine that has been tested on millions of people. We have a known-deadly pandemic that has killed almost 4.5 million people.
While we are not QUITE as clearcut as parachutes, this is still an area where we can reasonably conclude that the vaccine is vastly safer than being unvaccinated.
Just to be clear, you're arguing against evidence based medicine and instead advocating for hasty generalization and jumping to conclusions based on the absence of evidence.
Somewhere between our two points is an optimal middle ground. The holy grail of exclusively evidence based interventions is lofty no doubt, and we'll have to do the best with what we know right now, but to aim for anything less is quite difficult to defend.
I can't fathom how you could misinterpret a post saying "there's a difference between evidence and peer reviewed academic standards" to conclude that I've abandoned the idea of evidence entirely.
I don't need an academic, peer-reviewed study to tell me that using this site is safe. I don't need one to tell me that masks are safe. It's NICE to have such things, and I'm NOT opposed to them, but they are also NOT necessary for day-to-day reasoning.
I do think we should continue vaccine trials, because we might uncover subtle risks. But until we do, we are in fact at a point where we can conclude that the vaccine is significantly safer than going unvaccinated. What we expect to find going forward is small refinements like "X group should prioritize Y vaccine", not "Y vaccine is in fact more dangerous than Covid"
You're attacking a straw man here, my original comment was about the lack of evidence for vaccine safety in certain understudied sub-populations.
> we are in fact at a point where we can conclude that the vaccine is significantly safer than going unvaccinated
You keep coming back to "vaccinated versus unvaccinated" rhetoric and using irrelevant logical reasoning to argue that we should hastily generalize safety results to these sub-populations without citing any scientific literature supporting your claim.
The reality of the situation is a lot more complex, and it's obvious you're neglecting these nuances because for example, you fail to acknowledge how immunity acquired through natural infection is a major factor in the tradeoffs of vaccinating these understudied sub-populations.
I'm open to further debate, but I won't continue responding if you continue to raise the same unsupported arguments.
> You [...] argue that we should hastily generalize safety results to these sub-populations
I never argued for "hasty" or "generalization."
Simple question: which sub-population are you talking about? Please exclude any sub-population where a statistically significant sample of vaccinated individuals already exists, unless your concern is limited solely to long-term side effects.
If you are concerned about long-term side effects, please cite at least one scientific study explaining why you are concerned about that PARTICULAR sub-group being vulnerable to that PARTICULAR side effect - we wouldn't want to waste time if you can't cite any scientific literature supporting your claim
(P.S. I've only made a single comment about vaccinated -vs- unvaccinated, so you might have me confused with someone else in this thread)
Children and pregnant women are the two sub-populations I mentioned previously.
> Given that COVID-19 disease is far milder in the majority of children than in adults, the risk–benefit of a pediatric SARS-CoV-2 vaccine must be carefully weighed [0]
> The prognostic significance, long-term implications and mechanism of this myocardial injury needs to be studied further, especially as vaccination efforts are rolled out to younger children. [1]
> While the safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy data for the 4 authorized vaccines are reassuring so far, none of these vaccines has been systematically studied in pregnant and breastfeeding people [2]
> it is important to remain transparent about the lack of information, acknowledge concerns, and support those who decide to defer vaccination until more data are available [2]
"Even so, given the reassuring safety and efficacy profiles of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that have gained UK/US regulatory authorization to date, the known risks of COVID-19 likely outweigh the unclear risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for pregnant and breastfeeding people."
What are you advocating for? Your own Source Two backs me up here - we have plenty of reason to conclude that Covid is the bigger risk despite the lack of studies. It's right there in the "Conclusion" section.
> the known risks of COVID-19 likely outweigh the unclear risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for pregnant and breastfeeding people
Emphasis on "likely" - the authors do not conclude with any certainty, they're speculating based on the available evidence, just like you.
I guess your personal threshold for "plenty of reason to conclude" is lower than mine, and that's okay - to each their own.
But it's very clearly spelled out in the sources I cited: currently there is limited evidence demonstrating the safety and benefit profiles needed to conclude that every child and every pregnant woman should be vaccinated.
Yeah, but in the absence of better information, we make do with what we have, and pregnant people get vaccinated, right?
I see your point that more research is better, but given the current uncertainty you still have to decide whether Covid or Vaccine is the bigger risk, and all the science says that Covid is the bigger risk.
There are no doctors that will tell you not to get the vaccine unless you go looking for one who will tell you not to. Covid sucks and is filling up the hospitals, and it’s crazy to me that someone decides for themselves that a potential unknown about a vaccine is worse to them than the real virus taking out people left and right. You’re basically saying that the medical establishment is incompetent in the extreme, yet the evidence for that is extremely low.
It seems reasonable to argue that the control group should have access to the vaccine, but it still makes them not really a control group anymore right?
Yes, that's why they no longer in the control group. Informed consent can be withdrawn at any time during a trial, and people are not obligated to not take a vaccine when in the control group. The only thing you can do is remove someone from the study, or possibly move them to the other study arm.
I'm in a phase 3 study in Canada for a not-yet-approved vaccine called Medicago. It was a crossover study where you would either get the vaccine now or later, but there were some administrative issues with the second half of it. Between the delays associated with that and the sooner-than-expected availability of the mRNA vaccines in Canada, they ended up agreeing to unblind everyone with the thought that anyone who was in the placebo-first group would drop out and get an approved vaccine.
Those of us who got that vaccine first were encouraged to remain in, though, which I did. Though that may change depending on mandate/passport stuff, since for official purposes, I'm still considered unvaccinated. There have been a number of other issues like this that have come up, for example:
Why did the FDA not hold the expected public meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), to review the latest data prior to this approval? The last public meeting was in October 2020. In the intervening 10 months, tens (hundreds?) of millions of doses of EUA vaccine were administered, generating an enormous data set which has not been through VRBPAC review, https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2086
> Transparency advocates have criticised the ... (FDA) decision not to hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval of its covid-19 vaccine ... Kim Witczak ... a consumer representative on the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, said the decision removed an important mechanism for scrutinising the data ... "The public deserves a transparent process, especially as the call for boosters and mandates are rapidly increasing. These meetings offer a platform where questions can be raised, problems tackled, and data scrutinised in advance of an approval" ... She warned that without a meeting “we have no idea what the data looks like.”
“It is already concerning that full approval is being based on 6 months’ worth of data despite the clinical trials designed for two years,” she said. “There is no control group after Pfizer offered the product to placebo participants before the trials were completed. “Full approval of covid-19 vaccines must be done in an open public forum for all to see. It could set a precedent of lowered standards for future vaccine approvals.”
... Joshua Sharfstein ... former FDA deputy commissioner during the Obama administration, said that advisory committee meetings were more than just a way of receiving scientific input from outside experts. “It’s also an opportunity to educate the public about the important work that the FDA has done reviewing an enormous amount of data about a product,” he told The BMJ. “It’s a chance for questions to be asked and answered, building public confidence."
There hasn't been a virus in the past that needed a 100% vaccination rate. This one isn't that special. We just have different standards.
There are going to be some people and even large swathes of some countries that are never going to get vaccinated. If everyone took safety and science seriously, there probably would still be a control group in place. There were probably numerous people in the control group that had little to no risk of death nor complications even if they caught the virus and had to be quarantined. Ultimately, the vaccines will never meet the "gold standard" that Fauci and others applied to all other potential treatments.
Also, if vaccines become mandatory, the systems in place to address vaccine damage and liability need to be reformed. The excuse about scary yet isolated incidents having a disproportionate impact on vaccine adoption rates would no longer be valid.
I don’t see anything in the article that says control groups received the experimental vaccine after 14 days. They don’t even unblind the results until they’ve gotten enough confirmed cases to determine efficacy. Perhaps some people had enrolled just before they received enough data to unblind?
Agreed. It's some variation of an "appeal to authority" logical fallacy (there may be a different logical fallacy that fits better), where the truthfulness of what you say is somehow thought to be influenced by whether or not you've had the vaccine. Even though those 2 things are completely unrelated.
Unfortunately, if he fails to say that he risks getting downvoted, flagged, or labeled as a conspiracy theorist.
This is not limited to the medical field, I was once downvoted on an HN comment until I edited it to state that I wasn't supporting Trump, because people were reading it that way.
Yes this dynamic is caused by people reflexively downvoting and flagging posts which suggest facts or ideas that do not match their own opinion and cause them cognitive dissonance. Prefacing comments with vaccination status is how people have started mitigating those ad hominem fueled reactions.
Maybe in a perfect world we wouldn't have to occasionally preface comments with "I don't actually believe the Illuminati are using mind control lasers on us, but...", but if we live in a world where people who actually believe that tend to say things that sound like what we're about to say, is it really an unreasonable disclaimer?
The NPR citation you posted suggests the Moderna control group was offered the vaccine in January 2021, about 14 days after it was approved.
Moderna was approved on December 18, 2020.[0]
Moderna phase 3 trial started on July 27, 2020.[1]
IE, the control group was offered the vaccine more than five months after the trial began. This is before completion of the trial (Oct 2022 for Moderna, IIRC), which is an issue, but this "14 day" as written seems to be suggesting that it was 14 days after the trial began, when it's actually five month.
Additionally, when a treatment proves to be highly effective, it's normal and appropriate to start providing that treatment to the control group early, because leaving them to die or otherwise suffer an illness is considered unethical. This isn't something unique to the COVID vaccines.
May I ask why? I've had two shots without much hesitation but this whole booster thing came out of nowhere and gives me "fool me twice" vibes. I understand getting a flu shot every year to target new strains but this would be the exact same shot as 8 months ago.
I don’t know. The research I can find shows natural immunity is effective, but we don’t know the half life of it.
It also shows vaccination is effective, but we don’t know the half life of it.
So the CDCs stance is to vaccinate even if you have a natural immunity, because the vaccine _might_ do better. But that doesn’t seem to naturally follow.
It wouldn’t bother me if companies weren’t considering forcing you to vaccinate to keep your job, even if you have a natural immunity. These stances have real world consequences. You are asking people to trigger their immune system, something complex and not fully understood. Companies are taking these recommendations and using them as policy, forcing the recommendations as corporate laws. If you are going to force this on people, the way you are communicating isn’t how you do it.
Just check the 3rd dose data from Israel. Of course you don't know because you haven't looked for it. If you are unwilling to do the research just follow CDC guidelines. That's what everyone else does.
What makes you think I have the power to force anyone to anything?! I honestly don't care how I communicate or what you think of what corporations should do. I am personally tired of all these lazy ignorant rants while society is suffering and the medical community is doing their best.
Boosters are aptly named, they boost your antibody levels.
You are correct the flu shot targets different strains, but the H1N1 strain has been part of the annual flu shot since 2009 simply because it has continued to circulate. So just like you get an H1N1 shot every year (to boost your antibody levels), you will likely get a COVID shot every year to boost those antibodies.
It’s only currently approved for those who are immunocompromised, for which data show that vaccines don’t result in the same level of antibodies for them.
For others, it seems that with Pfizer the antibody level drops over time.
Body takes repeat threat way more seriously. That's the reason second dose of vaccine mRNA creates about 10x more antibodies. Almost all kids vaccine require a second or even 3 shots with months of gap in between to create stronger immunity. (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc...)
If you keep a tab on the news you might have seen antibody level from covid vaccines drops significantly over time. Actually same is true for people already have covid; natural protection wanes off within few months.
With regards to control, it would have been highly unethical to withhold the vaccine from them once it had been shown to save lives.
Second, Pfizer’s vaccines in terms of value produced are worth trillions. Even making $10 billion is completely worth it.
In terms of what we as a society should value and pay for, I would rather us pay a lot of money to Pfizer to develop life saving vaccines than 100’s of billions for ads or weapons.
I actually would like for Pfizer to have made even more money than they are making now.
Here's another interesting one I heard from a friend, pharmacist at CVS (and I have no source for it, so take what you will): Apparently, they no longer stock the J&J. Less efficacious, issues in production, sure whatever, that's not the biggest reason.
The biggest reason is: J&J's biggest advantage early on was how much cheaper it is. One shot, simpler manufacturing process (which they've screwed up several times anyway, granted), it would be the one to get widely distributed because the cost-per-fully-vaccinated individual is far lower.
The issue is, the government is paying for all this, and they write blank checks. CVS administers a Pfizer/Moderna; insurance or the government refunds (I'm told) $50. They administer a J&J, they get (again, hearsay) $10. Vaccination clinics are actively incentivized to stock the most expensive vaccines, because the profit per vaccine is higher. So, some have stopped stocking J&J (which, coincidentally, is the one vaccine I've heard many anti-vax people say they'd actually consider, as its kinda-sorta-not-really-but-good-enough more traditional. at least one person i've talked to has said 'well, i'd get the J&J, but the closest clinic that has it is 30 minutes away, so i just haven't gotten around to it').
I think a lot of people are holding out for scientific reasons:
1. vaccines require continuous boosters, not "fully" effective compared to natural antibodies
2. Those who have pre-existing natural antibodies don't need to synthesize more
3. Those with very low risk of COVID-19 such as those under 50 with no other pre-existing conditions, or especially the young, who are more at risk of dying from the Flu than COVID
Or point out that the 737 MAX had approval from another federal agency.
We simple can't be sure, it is personal risk management. Requiring the vaccine is silly because vaccinated people can still spread it (especially Delta), perhaps even spread it more since their symptoms aren't as severe and they are far more willing to mix with large crowds.
In general (and I don't mean you), parents have had zero regard for others being infected with the flu for as long as I can remember. I've gotten the worst flu of my life (coughing for months) from a visiting parent with an infected child (the parent knew it and did not tell).
Secondly, children have a very low risk, the flu is more dangerous to them than Covid.
Thirdly, assume that the growing body of evidence is correct . The vaccinated coworker who has a new Tinder date every week and mixes with large crowds in clubs will still be a higher risk than a reclusive, un-vaccinated, masked individual.
"Thirdly, assume that the growing body of evidence is correct . The vaccinated coworker who has a new Tinder date every week and mixes with large crowds in clubs will still be a higher risk than a reclusive, un-vaccinated, masked individual."
The overlap between antivaxers and masks does not work that way.
"In general (and I don't mean you), parents have had zero regard for others being infected with the flu for as long as I can remember. I've gotten the worst flu of my life (coughing for months) from a visiting parent with an infected child (the parent knew it and did not tell)."
So this is about revenge? I really have no clue what you point is.
"Secondly, children have a very low risk, the flu is more dangerous to them than Covid."
The number of children with severe symptoms is growing.
The vaccines were unfortunately politicized from the outset, from the first mention that they were in development. It's a shame that neither politicians nor the media felt it a good idea to keep the best interests of the people in the forefront, rather than their own. So, it's hard to blame the populous for developing a deep sense of distrust around it.
> people will pivot from “it’s experimental” to “it was rushed due to politics/greed”.
What is it, day 600 something of "just two weeks" to stop the spread? Oh wait, that's just the _other side's_ fault for not following the rules as well as you did.
From where I sit, it seems like a lot of people are having a hard time admitting that shutting down the world's economy may have been the wrong choice, hindsight.
We're about to find out one way or the other in the US. Hospitals are full, ERs are full, ICUs are full and it is likely going to stay that way all fall/winter. This has two consequences: 1) There are no beds and/or staff for people coming in with heart attacks or from car crashes or other solvable issues. 2) Fatigue is building on hospital healthcare workers. They are being berated by family members of dying un-vaccinated persons. They are at a breaking point.I think we will see a complete meltdown of our hospital system. There is going to be a flood of healthcare quitting. I personally expect 20% to walk away over the next 6 months.
Hospitals, ERs, and ICUs are not full in Texas, Florida, or Colorado. They never were.
All those field hospitals that were stood up in 2021 across the US have been torn down because they were not needed.
I don't know about you, but it looks more to me like all we are seeing is the breakdown of crony-capitalism. It's not a coincidence that the vaccines are some of the most profitable medical products ever produced.
The "ICU beds full" keeps getting parroted everywhere but is patently false. The rest of your post is the same alarmist nonsense that has kept everyone in an unnecessary state of anxiety for the last 16 months.
Ive already walked away from my FAANG job because they are _considering_ changing the terms of my employment to include vaccination.
Several small startups I’ve talked to are already requiring proof of vaccination. But it’s legal and insurance demanding it, not their team. And these are for _fully remote_ positions. I suspect FAANG is finding itself in a similar position.
Tin foil hat: I’m starting to suspect someone (gov? Pharma?) is leaning on insurance companies to in turn pressure the industry to mandate vaccination.
> Walk away from a job because of it
It’s starting to seem like you’ll be free to not vaccinate in the U.S., but it’s more than walking away from a job. If insurance requires it, you’ll have to find a company that has an insurance company willing to float you an exemption for non-protected class reasons; it’s not clear how much the market is going to allow for that.
BTW: I’m vaccinated. I left my job not to avoid vaccination, but because they thought they could remove my agency.
This won't help at all. The narrative will indeed move from unapproved to rushed. This is just like a run of the mill FB post: ain't nobody convincing nobody of nothing! The FDA screwed up and should have just announced it was fully approved back in December, torpedoes be damned.
Regarding your comment. I know several people who have already quit, many looking for new jobs and many who have shored up their finances. Many who have had the vaccine have explicitly stated they would never get their kids vaccinated. So there's also that...
I also know probably 10 families who have up and moved to Texas and Florida in 2021.
Here's follow up studies in specified in the letter:
4. Study C4591009, entitled “A Non-Interventional Post-Approval Safety Study of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine in the United States,” to evaluate the occurrence of myocarditis and pericarditis following administration of COMIRNATY. We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this study according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: August 31, 2021
- Monitoring Report Submission: October 31, 2022
- Interim Report Submission: October 31, 2023
- Study Completion: June 30, 2025
- Final Report Submission: October 31, 2025
5. Study C4591021, entitled “Post Conditional Approval Active Surveillance Study Among Individuals in Europe Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine,” to evaluate the occurrence of myocarditis and pericarditis following administration of COMIRNATY. We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this study according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: August 11, 2021
- Progress Report Submission: September 30, 2021
- Interim Report 1 Submission: March 31, 2022
- Interim Report 2 Submission: September 30, 2022
- Interim Report 3 Submission: March 31, 2023
- Interim Report 4 Submission: September 30, 2023
- Interim Report 5 Submission: March 31, 2024
- Study Completion: March 31, 2024
- Final Report Submission: September 30, 2024
6. Study C4591021 substudy to describe the natural history of myocarditis and pericarditis following administration of COMIRNATY. We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this study according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: January 31, 2022
- Study Completion: March 31, 2024
- Final Report Submission: September 30, 2024
7. Study C4591036, a prospective cohort study with at least 5 years of follow-up for potential long-term sequelae of myocarditis after vaccination (in collaboration with Pediatric Heart Network). We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this study according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: November 30, 2021
- Study Completion: December 31, 2026
- Final Report Submission: May 31, 2027
8. Study C4591007 substudy to prospectively assess the incidence of subclinical myocarditis following administration of the second dose of COMIRNATY in a subset of participants 5 through 15 years of age. We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this assessment according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: September 30, 2021
- Study Completion: November 30, 2023
- Final Report Submission: May 31, 2024
9. Study C4591031 substudy to prospectively assess the incidence of subclinical myocarditis following administration of a third dose of COMIRNATY in a subset of participants 16 to 30 years of age. We acknowledge the timetable you submitted on August 21, 2021, which states that you will conduct this study according to the following schedule:
- Final Protocol Submission: November 30, 2021
- Study Completion: June 30, 2022
- Final Report Submission: December 31, 2022
10. Study C4591022, entitled “Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Exposure during Pregnancy: A Non-Interventional Post-Approval Safety Study of Pregnancy and Infant Outcomes in the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS)/MotherToBaby Pregnancy Registry.”
- Final Protocol Submission: July 1, 2021
- Study Completion: June 30, 2025
- Final Report Submission: December 31, 2025
11. Study C4591007 substudy to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of lower dose levels of COMIRNATY in individuals 12 through <30 years of age.
- Final Protocol Submission: September 30, 2021
- Study Completion: November 30, 2023
- Final Report Submission: May 31, 2024
12. Study C4591012, entitled “Post-emergency Use Authorization Active Safety Surveillance Study Among Individuals in the Veteran’s Affairs Health System Receiving Pfizer-BioNTech Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine.”
- Final Protocol Submission: January 29, 2021
- Study Completion: June 30, 2023
- Final Report Submission: December 31, 2023
13. Study C4591014, entitled “Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 BNT162b2 Vaccine Effectiveness Study - Kaiser Permanente Southern California.”
Nobody knows when under 12 will get an EUA: they need more data before they can apply. Rumor is they will have the data soon and so the EUA will happen by the end of September. This is just a rumor: it seems likely, but could be wishful thinking.
Unrelated to approval status. We handle vaccine injury compensation via a special court and system funded by a tax on vaccine doses so manufacturers don't nope out and threaten the production of vaccines entirely.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act is irrelevant here; the liability protection for all COVID countermeasures, including vaccines, is not under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program established by that act, but is instead under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program established by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.
Yes, and as I understand it, the COVID vaccines under EUA are exempt from even this vaccine court system to date because of an HHS declaration in March 2020. So this isn't changing?
The US needs it if they want people who are spooked my mRNA tech to get vaccinated. They also need it if they want a vaccine that is the mostly likely to be safe for use in children.
It's a similar mechanism, right? You're just using a virus to carry the genetic material, which also involves an extra transcription step in the cell (what is theorized as causing mutations in the spike and thus the stroke/clotting issues). Still quite different from the traditional inactive or protein based ones.
Transcription causes mutations in the spike that causes clotting issues? Do you have any idea how much transcription happens in your cells, every moment of every day? You need to reconsider where you’re getting your information.
There's the Novavax one. It's been in testing about as long as Pfizer and is US based. It hasn't been pushed along with the help of a larger partner like the others. Maybe they will get there. I would have preferred a vaccine using more traditional technology due to the lack of information on the potential for autoimmune conditions in the future.
That's assuming they're not going to find out yet another excuse. Both vector vaccines and inactivated virus vaccines have faced just as much opposition.
The opposition to rushed or mandated COVID vaccination has close to zero ties to the “anti-vaccine” movement. Unless you watch CNN and MSNBC as your primary source of news, of course.
if you don't think there's significant overlap I have a bridge to sell you
In either case, while non-mRNA vaccines may incentive the 'vaccine hesitant' to get poked, no amount of modification or scientific advance will get anti-vaxxers to get immunized edit: with a vaccine (I'm assuming an FDA-approved small molecule therapeutic would be OK with some of them).
The FDA asked for information on the stage 3 clinical trails (which is a normal thing to get) and instead of providing it they decided to go for full approval.
Which is really strange. Unclear why they would do that.
The switch from experimental to full approval is mostly about repeatable and certified manufacturing and logistics. There is no new science in this approval.
That's not how the drug industry works. The companies fund and conduct their own efficacy and safety trials, the government just rubber stamps them. The FDA doesn't perform an actual science. They don't even require an impartial group to replicate the science.
The FDA doesn't do really much of anything to collect safety data. There's seemingly no reason for the agency to exist.
The most interesting science is not public and probably never be. What, if any, internal debate was occurred at the FDA, their pre-approval questions for manufacturers, and their responses, ect.
Without this, all we really have to go on is the public information that was release a year ago.
An interesting, short read is the difference between Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and the full FDA approval[0].
Basically it is manufacturing, funding and red tape being the difference, nothing about safety or clinical trials differs.
In software terms, EUA is parallel tracked sprints for clinical trials and manufacturing at same time vs. regular approval is Waterfall where manufacturing occurs after approval.
Why isn’t the EUA process the default then? It sounds like manufacturing being after approval would just be a cost thing producers could figure out without needing the FDA involved…?
Edit: also why is there such a large lag between EUA and full FDA approval? That flow chart seems misleading.
Vaccines are pretty low margin. Jumping straight to production for a vaccine that winds up not approved would prove pretty expensive, and most of them aren't an emergency scenario that would justify that risk.
You've answered why the government guaranteed purchases of the vaccine & why production was parallelized. That doesn't answer the question why this changes the FDA authorization flow because in the flow chart EUA & full approval happen at roughly the same time & the claim is they have the same safety requirements profile (i.e. I am free to burn money & produce something someone doesn't buy - why would the FDA be involved).
Said another way, what was the extra steps that needed to happen between EUA & full approval?
EUA can be applied to many different product categories including diagnostics (basically every single PCR and antigen test in the US up to very recently was initially released under EUA), therapeutics (for example the FDA granted an EUA on chloroquine for threatment of COVID), other medical devices (for example PPE) and vaccines.
The EUA rules for each category is different in how they differ from the categories baseline. For vaccines the gulf between EUA and full process was relatively small - the clinical dataset was basically equivalent.
There is absolutely nothing stopping a company from manufacturing whatever they want before they get a BLA - they just can't market it.
In real terms, it looks like the two big time savers was reducing long-term effects follow up from 6 months to 2 months, and well as probably an abbreviated review of manufacturing processes.
> In real terms, it looks like the two big time savers was reducing long-term effects follow up from 6 months to 2 months, and well as probably an abbreviated review of manufacturing processes.
This flow chart is not quite accurate, or at least is misleading. There is more to a distinction between EUA and full FDA approval than where manufacturing happens. The FDA's own website[0] says:
> The EUA process is different than an FDA approval or clearance. Under an EUA, in an emergency, the FDA makes a product available to the public based on the best available evidence, without waiting for all the evidence that would be needed for FDA approval or clearance.
I don't post this to spread doubt about the EUA and am fully confident in the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. But as written, this website would seem to suggest that the only difference is when production happens - which is not accurate.
I'm sure there are more and very detailed differences, like if the evidence leads to an unsafe vaccine that there are different processes.
I think the major talking point is covered by this info, which is meant for the general public. I'll make an assumption that the general public is also less educated on average than the users on HN on average. A flowchart that would satisfy a bunch of nerdy engineers (us HN users) with all possible paths would confuse the heck out of everyone else.
From that Wikipedia article, pharma companies paid a total of 2.5 billions in damages from 2006 to 2020. Seems hard to say that they can't be sued, it's just a different court system.
The critical difference is that there's no culpability or consequences or Erin Brockavich-style showdown with the Big Lawyers from Big Pharma.
For the "vaccine court" you're just presenting a claim that vaccine X could cause condition Y, that you developed condition Y after taking vaccine X, and that there's no other reason you'd suffer from condition Y. If the court finds it plausible, you (and your lawyers) get paid, and everyone goes about their business the same as before.
Pfizer secret contracts with governments (at least in Latin America) force to accept the non suitable nature of the agreement against the company. The receptor of the vaccine signs a consent of declining to demand outside his own country, and the government signs to decline demands against Pfizer.It is no one's fault land in your body.
Other parties can be sued, e.g. universities and companies with un-scientific mandates for an intramuscular vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity (e.g. current Covid vaccines), while they fail to recognize natural immunity that provides both nasal/mucosal and blood/serum antibodies, https://nclalegal.org/2021/08/george-mason-univ-caves-to-ncl...
> "NCLA is pleased that GMU granted Professor Zywicki’s medical exemption, which we believe it only did because he filed this lawsuit. According to GMU, with the medical exemption, Prof. Zywicki may continue serving the GMU community, as he has for more than two decades, without receiving a medically unnecessary vaccine and without undue burden. Nevertheless, NCLA remains dismayed by GMU’s refusal—along with many other public and private universities and other employers—to recognize that the science establishes beyond any doubt that natural immunity is as robust or more so than vaccine immunity.”
The Secretary must also state that liability protections available under the PREP Act are in effect with respect to the Recommended Activities. These liability protections provide that, “[s]ubject to other provisions of [the PREP Act], a covered person shall be immune from suit and liability under federal and state law with respect to all claims for loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the administration to or use by an individual of a covered countermeasure if a Declaration has been issued with respect to such countermeasure.”
...
The PREP Act states that a “Covered Countermeasure” must be a “qualified pandemic or epidemic product,” or a “security countermeasure,” as described immediately below; or a drug, biological product or device authorized for emergency use in accordance with Sections 564, 564A, or 564B of the FD&C Act.
Because given the press announcement last week about the acting commissioner (the administration says she is unfit to nominate) it’s clear they’re setting her up as a scapegoat. That conveys, to me, an administration without foresight or ethics. Scapegoats that are obvious are not good scapegoats.
Doing nothing could have been chalked up to typical sclerotic political mechanizations we’ve all come to expect.
They could have, instead, put out a few tidbits in friendly media outlets about how easy it is to get a booster: you go to cvs and tell them you are unvaxxed. Run stories about how “everyone is doing it(tm)”. That’s a better way to stimulate demand IMO. Fewer long term consequences like permanent distrust of all vaccines, the administration and the fda.
They usually last years as it takes that long to get enough participants to have enough power. There were so many participants, that wasn't necessary here.
It's been about 1.5 years of study, and a billion doses given, give-or-take. There's plenty of data. The FDA usually is a glacial, unmotivated bureaucracy, but for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, this got a little bump in urgency.
But should feelings matter in this question? The vast majority of us has no intuition when it comes to vaccine approval processes, as is the case with most things that aren't every day experiences. (And even then intuition or gut feelings can be misleading.)
Criticism should point out concrete failures to meet regulations or errors in the statistical analysis of the trials.
From your own article where it repeatedly emphasizes that the Pfizer vaccine is no way outdated:
> The vaccine still provides very high levels of protection against hospitalization (92%) and severe illness (91%) caused by the Delta variant, the ministry said.
..
> 91%. That’s how effective the Pfizer vaccine is at preventing serious illness and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant after two doses, according to the Israeli study. This is only slightly lower than against other variants. As this is the primary purpose of a vaccine, it is still highly successful, though it does mean it will likely not be sufficient to stop outbreaks on its own.
In any case, there's clear evidence that immunity waned in people given two doses too close together 8 months ago and that a third dose basically regains full efficacy.
Yeah, everyone I've talked to who is not taking it used it as a secondary argument as to why people who don't have other concerns should still be cautious.
It's kinda fun seeing it happen in real-time in the comments though. Lol. These people will be the joke of history books. I can imagine the line already:
"While many were hopeful that FDA approval would assuage the large amount of vaccine skepticism, it did not seem to change the narrative."
I will continue laughing at their pathetic graves and funerals while being frustrated at their impact on me.
Why should I have sympathy for those who have displayed a such reckless disregard for the well-being of their fellow neighbors? The best I can muster is some pity for them falling victim to disinformation. So many of us endured personal sacrifice over the last 18 months to help prevent the spread of covid, and now these people refuse to take even the simplest steps?
Yes, that sacrifice successfully flattened the curve. No thanks to everyone who defied lock downs and mask mandates.
Now we're onto the next step: using the vaccine to reach herd immunity so we can be done with this pandemic once and for all. And what do you know? Turns out the same psychopaths that wouldn't follow guidelines before also won't accept the smallest sacrifice of getting the vaccine either
These people are psychotic. Literally, not hyperbolically.
Society is going through a mass psychosis event and people need to seriously prepare to see (or be a victim of) the next major genocide in world history.
It's interesting that this went so viral. I've had two friends independently send it to me and now I see it here. Seems fishy and a lot of the comments under it don't seem genuine. Lots of "I'm sending this to everyone I know" or "the people who need to hear this won't". Bizarre.
Seems to be sponsored by academyofideas.com. Good luck finding who actually runs that site.
But do you disagree with the video? It seems pretty spot on to me. People *are* going mad and (violently) turning against each other, and the media and governments are perpetuating it.
Regarding the comments -- that's YT for you. The comments section is always weird.
Ha, fair enough. The antivax are now moving one goal post.
How many goal posts have been moved by Covid apologists? From the initial "two weeks to flatten the curve" to the recurring lockdowns, the vaccine that needs to reach a target of 70%, no 80%, no in fact maybe we will still have lockdowns even with 80%.
Any physician may prescribe any FDA-approved medication outside the scope of the label if it's indicated in their medical judgment.
That means that it may be prescribed to individuals <18 in some circumstances, and that it's legal to do so (explicit emergency authorization notwithstanding).
Can confirm, lots of people from my country have been traveling to Miami to get the shot. Some go for 10 days to get the Johnson shot (single dose), because they can't/don't want to spend a month for the two doses.
According to what I've heard, you can just walk into any Walgreens/pharmacy to get it, without paying or getting an ID check.
Not sure how legal that is though. I understand that those should be for tax-paying citizens.
Does that actually inflate the vaccination rate in Miami then? I don't think vaccine access should be limited to citizens (let alone tax paying ones) but at least the statistics should be clear in pointing out whether or not the vaccinations are for residents, or for tourists. The real vaccination rate among residents in Miami could be much lower then.
I traveled to Miami in May, went through a long line and didn't get the Pfizer shot as they were checking people :(
I wouldn't want to spend so much money flying there without a guarantee. Anyways, I will probably be able to get something (looking for a 3rd Pfizer shot), I just don't like to depend on getting lucky.
It is my understanding that simply waiting for a longer time would not have helped. This side effect did not come much later after the vaccination, but only in very rare cases, which is why it took some time to notice it. Considering how many people we vaccinated with the Covid vaccines, we should have seen (and have seen, with myocarditis, trombosis) such rare side effects. Plus, it is likely that the disease itself would have a similar effect on patients, because it is an interaction of the immune system with the nervous system. The vaccine itself is cleared from the body within weeks, after all, so it's not like medicine that is taken over a long period of time and can build up.
So what you need is not longer trials, but trials with more people. Which is what is done in so called phase 4 trials after approval.
Look through a list of vaccine safety recalls. Here's a highlight of the big ones--this is the list that most vaccine hesitant people talk about when they discuss their issues with vaccine safety.
Thanks for the list too. Looking at the examples from the 90s on - aside from the rotavirus vaccine - this looks like a list of examples for why there should not be concern. Concerns were raised for vaccines and subsequently found to be uncorrelated.
Regardless of interpretation too, this doesn't support the claim the commenter made - there has never been a vaccine recalled within a year.
There was never a major mRNA vaccine roll out ever. mRNA possibly does not compare to traditional vaccines, there's evidence it is a different beast entirely.
Enough reason to be cautious, wait out the hidden/late-onset side effect, and not give it to those not too vulnerable to covid.
But authorities claim it's totally safe for all ages, while they have no data to back this up (that'd need a long trial, and those taking it ARE the long trial).
Multiple mRNA vaccines have been tested on humans since 2008 and on animals before that. None of them produced any “late-onset” side effects. And there is no sound theoretical mechanism for late-onset mRNA side effects.
No drug approval process works like what you are proposing.
Hundreds of millions of people have had nearly a year to develop side effects—-the safety profile is very well known at this point.
It's stories like this --gov't makes out of court settlements and vaccine retracted-- that give a lot of credibility to those against/ hesitant towards vaccination.
I'm in a low-risk group and see no use in getting vaccinated, especially since herd immunity is off the table and nearby ICUs are not overflowing. The media/pharma/politicians/bigtech are all passing out the same message: get the vaccine. Non of them highlight that there are good reasons not to. So much for informed consent?
You might want to reevaluate your definition of low risk thanks to the delta variant.
My wife is a pediatric ER doctor (because the adult ER is swamped they're now seeing all patients up to 25), during the first few waves of COVID, she saw almost no severe cases in children and young adults. There were plenty of kids who came in with COVID, but she didn't admit a single otherwise healthy kid or young adult because of COVID.
In the last week, she's admitted 3 17 year olds to the PICU, and they've admitted many more than that to the floor for treatment.
>It's stories like this --gov't makes out of court settlements and vaccine retracted-- that give a lot of credibility to those against/ hesitant towards vaccination.
We have now administered billions of doses of MRNA vaccines. The safety profiles are more well known than a large percentage of drugs on the market that most people would take without a moment's hesitation.
Historically vaccines have been taken off the market b/c of issues that were too uncommon to show up in trials, which consist of only a few thousand or tens of thousands of people. The side effects were so rare that they only showed up once millions of people started taking them.
There has never been a vaccine that was pulled off the market for a side effect that took a year to show up.
Because in places where lots of people think like you, the ICUs are overflowing?
I also think you underestimate how ANGRY people are that they spent 18 months in lockdown, only to have some anti-vaxers mess things up at the end. By this point, we shouldn't be talking about which areas do/don't have overflowing ICUs, we should be talking about which areas have hit milestones for number of days without a positive case!
Media fearmongering about Delta doesn't change anything. The reality is that places which have very high vaccination rates have been able to return much more to normal. And all evidence points to the more people get vaccinated, the sooner things will return entirely to normal
People say "trust the science".
But I've seen no proof that this vaccine works.
In fact no you need a third shot to combat the delta variant yet I've seen no proof that people who've had the third shot can't get the delta variant.
Its sad to think people believe the lies the government and media is telling them.
Saying "take the vaccine then we can all go back to normal" is like saying "the lockdown will only be two weeks long".
The goal posts keep shifting.
The government will never stop taking away your freedom and spreading lies to push this agenda.
To my best knowledge anti-vaxxer did not mess things up, govt+pharma promissed did. They start with: just a few weak to ease the curve, never a vax passport, vaccines create herd immunity and we can kick covids ass.
Now where we are: long lockdowns, talks of vax passports everywhere, no herd immunity, covid is here to stay with us (due to animal reservoirs), no overflowing ICUs but still gov'ts reigning with wartime-like superpowers.
The fearful/obedient have their vaccine, those who did not will not. Some died, most live. This is no spanish flu. So what was the problem again?
People don’t want to take the vaccine because others are trying to force them to.
They would say “it’s not FDA approved!” not as the core of their hesitancy, but because they were trying to be appeal to pro-vax peoples decision making framework.
I don’t think we should be able to require them to.
To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year. Cities would have burned over it.
And honestly: I was one of the first to take it, but the desire to almost force me to take a booster, and the weird, Orwellian ways that the government talks about it, has turned me against the booster.
It ends up feeling less like the decisions are guided by science and more like they’re guided by petty tyrants wanting to control what others do.
Anybody who has ever lived under an HOA will recognize this.
Let's apply that logic to everything, then, and see how it works out. You're fat or obese and have health outcomes stemming from those choices? Enjoy your heart attack, fatty. You get injured doing something "non-essential?" Your mountain bike accident sounds like your problem. You're a smoker and get lung cancer? Sorry, no treatment is available for you.
You don't get to dictate the health choices of others. And if we're going down that road (which you seem to embrace) a vaccine against a disease with such a low death rate hardly seems a logical place to start. But that's presuming logic is the starting point, a conclusion lacking evidence.
I don't support denying healthcare based on choices. But I heard that some hospitals in Texas have started using it during triage. And there is certainly precedent for that. E.g. try getting a transplant if you are still engaging in the behavior that caused you to need one in the first place. So if a hospital has only one bed available and two people to take it, one of whom is vaccinated experiencing a severe breakthrough case, and another is someone who chose not to get vaccinated, the hospital has to make a choice on who is most likely to survive.
Smoking is already banned in places where it can give other people lung cancer. Cycling and driving is also regulated to reduce risk to other road users and pedestrians.
Putting lives of other people at risk is not your "health choice".
But you're forgetting that currently these vaccines are not really doing a great job at decreasing hospitalizations in at-risk populations. Look at Israel. Thanks.
> CLAIM: The newest Israeli data on COVID-19 infections indicate a complete vaccine failure on every level. The data from Israel shows that nearly all serious cases and deaths are among the vaccinated.
> AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The claim ignores the fact that Israel has only a fraction of the COVID-19 cases that it had in January, before vaccines were widespread. Furthermore, the majority of adults in Israel are now vaccinated with two Pfizer shots. No vaccine is perfect at preventing breakthrough cases, but the data shows vaccines are reducing the number of people who are severely ill, hospitalized or die from the virus.
we don't require anyone to take the vaccine, and we will never require anyone to take the vaccine. What we should and will do is restrict what someone who is not vaccinated can do to limit the harm they will cause to others. No one is going to bang down your door and force a vaccine into your arm, but if you do not want to get vaccinated you will need to change your life because you will be restricted from participating in many things where you are a danger to others.
Compare: "You can murder someone, but then freedoms will be taken from you, because you could hurt someone with these freedoms. You won't get brainwashed out of it, but if you do commit murder, your freedoms are taken away."
Not arguing against the policy, but it in practice, it _is_ the same.
Society is coercing people into taking the vaccine by requiring it for any activities outside the home. Want to go to the grocery store? Get a vaccine or wear a mask. Want to go to Disneyland? Get a vaccine or wear a mask. Want to attend a conference? Get a vaccine or take a test and wear a mask. The mask and testing mandates are an effort to wear down anti-vaccine people instead of letting them be.
The mask mandates are universal -- everyone is required, vaccinated or not. When they were only advised, it was advised that the unvaccinated wear them. And whether you can go into a privately owned store, privately owned Disneyland, or privately owned conference -- these are private businesses, the gov't should not tell them they cannot require vaccination.
That’s not the case in California. Mask wearing is only required for the unvaccinated. Theme parks and other entertainment venues must follow that mask requirement. Similarly, events of a certain size will require vaccine proof.
Your post sounds pretty good, especially when you don't conclude on what we are allowing by "letting them be", which is to continue the spread of a deadly disease.
There’s a vaccine that has an effective rate of well over 99.9% and is free for everyone in America. The “continued spread of a deadly disease” is among those who choose not to vaccinate. The vast majority of people getting seriously ill and dying in America chose to not get vaccinated AND not changing their habits.
I think it's relatively important to recognize both the right of (the people who make up) a society to decide the rules for interacting in society, and the limits we have imposed on ourselves and the rules we make.
We have made up a huge number of arbitrary rules, some at a very broad scale (for instance, that you must shoes and shirts to go into most businesses), others idiosyncratic and basically between one person and another (no cats in this apartment). They all restrict our choices and our freedom and our actions.
We have also set specific limits on what sort of rules we can make up. You can say "no cats" in an apartment, fine, but you can't say "no pregnant women". You can fire someone for showing up at work one day with a face tattoo but not for changing their religion.
"Not wanting to get a vaccine" or "not wanting to wear a face mask" is not currently a recognized protected class (although not being able to because of a medical condition probably is, but hey, of the many many things I am not, I am not a lawyer). There's nothing saying it couldn't be -- we didn't used to have a concept of "protected class", we just had to make it up at some point -- but that's one way to frame this discussion.
That line of thinking gets pretty interesting when you realize that African-Americans are one of the lowest vaccinated groups. Congratulations, you just reintroduced segregation.
It's not really about you. It's about preventing other, more vulnerable people from getting sick. Living in a society means giving up some of your freedoms in exchange for security, and getting vaccinated as a way to help other people should be part of that exchange.
If you have a suppressed immune system from other medications, then other illnesses like the common cold and the flu can kill you.
This is why people who take immunosuppressants typically avoid going out in public, and when they do they wear serious masks intended to protect them from others.
Immuno-compromised people aren't some isolated hobbit species, they're people like you and me that have jobs, run errands, learn in schools, consume food, often live with other humans who have to go out in public, etc. And new folks with sub-par immune systems are born or created every day.
Many vaccine-resistant folks will throw this population away from the entire risk analysis equation, treating them as a mere error term. At least, this has been my observation. In my opinion they should just admit they don't care about the fate of others beyond the 'thoughts and prayers' passive level.
You're just making things up. Lots of drugs screw with your immunity to various degrees and for the most part they live normal lives. This difference now is we have a very contagious and much more deadly disease.
I think some countries (such as the UK) recognize religious and ethical reasons. For example you can say that you're a vegan and can't take the vaccine because they're tested on animals.
But I'd rather be injected with a litre of smallpox than go vegan.
I don't agree with this, in general. We shouldn't give up our freedoms. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin) We should be motivated by a desire to help one another, and resist when freedoms are removed. That being said, if businesses want to exercise their freedoms to make life more difficult for the unvaccinated, so be it.
I think this is for the most part what the person above you is suggesting. B2E and B2C relationships being severed over not getting vaccinated.
In addition like previous precedents, public schools would not allow the unvaccinated in the future. These things all combined would mean individuals would be having to change their lifestyle since they’re choosing not to participate in a way that’s safe for others.
That's a nice thought, but I can't cosign, unless Ben happens to also have an informed opinion on societal life under the tyranny of communicable diseases.
Exactly. Any business can choose to restrict unvaccinated. Any business can fire their employees for being unvaccinated if they want to.
The problem is New York will fine any businesses not checking vaccine passes and are forcing them to turn away unvaccinated.
Ok - so can the unvaccinated start their own restaurants of only unvaccinated? Can we open up our own hospitals with the nurses that were fired from mandates? Can we setup our own public transportation? Why not?
Is it because of the scare mongering about variants? Well people who took the vaccine are also causing variants, actually their supposedly super-high levels of vaccine antibodies are not stopping breakthroughs that much - so they are putting evolutionary pressure on the virus to mutate and evade those antibodies. It makes no sense to blame the unvaccinated for that. So why take away unvaccinated freedoms to setup their own restaurants, services etc? That's not liberty for a business or anyone really, that's fascism.
should the government prescreen all potential romantic partners to stop these vulnerable populations from contracting hepatitis or chlamydia?
surely sexual freedom and bodily autonomy can be put on the bench if more people can be kept safe without them
I may be misunderstanding your meaning, but I think you mean that half of the country does not like Biden, and Biden is requiring everyone to get the vaccine?
Is that happening? I cannot find any federal law of any kind (let alone stemming from the oval office) requiring individuals to get the vaccine.
> I cannot find any federal law of any kind (let alone stemming from the oval office) requiring individuals to get the vaccine.
Does it need to be a law to be compulsory? How many Americans, including employees of numerous branches of the federal government that have said mandates, have the luxury of walking away from their jobs? Things like...
> The Mayor will also be initiating a “Key to NYC Pass,” which is like the Covid-19 passport talked about a few months ago. It's a carrot-and-stick approach, as people will be required to show that they are vaccinated if they want to go to restaurants, gyms and other events. No vaccinations, no entrance. “If you want to participate in society fully, you’ve got to get vaccinated,” de Blasio proclaimed. “If we’re going to stop the Delta variant, the time is now,” said the mayor. “This is going to make clear, you want to enjoy everything great in this summer of New York City? Go get vaccinated.”
> In an interview with MSNBC, de Blasio dialed up his frustration over the unvaccinated. “We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have been more kind and compassionate. Free testing, everywhere you turn, incentives, friendly, warm embrace. The voluntary phase is over,” de Blasio said last week. “It’s time for mandates, because it’s the only way to protect our people.”
De Blasio is talking about restricting access to entirely optional events and locations based on vaccine status, not mandating anyone get it or else.
Covid is a disease that overwhelmingly targets the obese.
But you can't go to a gym.
Do you consider working out an "optional" endeavor?
Not only is it essential to beating covid, but, working out keeps people sane. More young people have died from increased alcohol abuse, suicide, and drug overdoses than Covid. This all coincides with the insane push to de-humanize humans. We are social creatures. We are active creatures. For the past year and a half we have been denied these human needs. What is optional to you, is essential to others.
Personally, I don't care too much about losing the prospect of eating out, or hanging out in a bar. For others, especially young people seeing their entire social prospects evaporate before their eyes- this is life ending. For me, working out keeps me sane and not suicidal. I don't have the luxury of a home gym.
I chose to continue working out during the pandemic, training at "secret" gyms. For my health and my sanity.
All my other friends in my age group have put on weight and are more unhealthy than they've ever been. How does this help fight the pandemic?
body weight exercises, running, walking, biking, or just getting vaccinated are all options.
Beyond that, I agree that mental health services are essential and should be provided at no cost to anyone who needs it, especially when precautions against a pandemic have a negative affect on mental health.
"Optional events". This isn't how I want to spend the rest of my days. I can't believe my children will have to grow up in this cyberpunk hell hole. These vaccine passports will certainly expand to a full on social credit system. Why not just add more key/value pairs to it and gain nearly total control over the population?
The Department of Homeland Security saying "opposition to COVID measures" makes someone a "potential terror threat" is about as knee-deep in Orwellian propaganda as you can get.
"Through the remainder of 2021, racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States. These extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of COVID-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks. Pandemic-related stressors have contributed to increased societal strains and tensions, driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year.
Foreign and domestic threat actors, to include foreign intelligence services, international terrorist groups and domestic violent extremists, continue to introduce, amplify, and disseminate narratives online that promote violence, and have called for violence against elected officials, political representatives, government facilities, law enforcement, religious communities or commercial facilities, and perceived ideologically-opposed individuals. There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases."
Why should a University Professor (or some benefactor) have to spend (hundreds? tens) of thousands of dollars defending their naturally derived antibodies? The result of that effort didn't even result in a University making broad exception for those with "suitably up-to-snuff immunities", they just let the one guy teach.
I'm under the impression that the vast majority of mandates have exceptions for existing immunity, no?
This has got to be one of the dumber arguments I've seen made in the media and especially here.
Kamala was saying that if the only person telling her she should get vaccinated was Donald Trump, then no, she would not take it.
The (very clear) implication is that she would prefer that people who actually know what they are talking about (i.e. virologists, doctors, nurses, scientists, the FDA, the CDC, NIH...etc) recommends getting the vaccine, then she would get it enthusiastically.
Is this really too hard to understand or are you really trying to use this extremely flimsy argument to accuse her of hypocrisy?
Why did you omit the first part of the quote? “If the public health professionals … tell me to take I will absolutely take it. But if Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.”
I think this is a reasonable message of caution when talking about someone pushing HCQ and drinking bleach on the daily.
Does the first part matter in the context of what the OP was talking about? If Trump mandated it many would not take it on that basis alone. That’s the point I’m responding to.
“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the Doctors, tell us we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I'm not taking it.“
Note “But if…”. That programmers aren’t able to parse this if else statement is concerning.
With context it is obvious that she is just saying if Trump alone says take it, then she won't be taking it. Which is understandable in the context of the moment since I believe it had been recently revealed that trump was communicating with the FDA demanding that they approve it immediately.
That's an interesting quote and you're 100% correct. However you only gave a snippet of the quote. The full transcript is:
Commentator: If the Trump administration approves a vaccine before or after the election should Americans take it? And would you take it?
Harris: If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the Doctors, tell us we should take it, I'll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I'm not taking it.
Harris is alluding to the fact that we should listen to people who actually have medical experience and know what they're talking about. You have to remember this was only a few months after Trump had tried to play doctor on TV by saying:
"So I asked Bill a question some of you are thinking of if you're into that world, which I find to be pretty interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're gonna test that too, sounds interesting. And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we'll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that's pretty powerful."
She is absolutely right. If trump touts a vaccine but the medical community does not, she wouldn't trust it - and neither should you.
You have to remember at the time trump was recommending hydroxychloroquine as a preventative and miracle treatment for COVID-19. Sadly some of his followers still believe it (and now are looking at ivermectin as well).
> the weird, Orwellian ways that the government talks about it, has turned me against the booster.
You desperately need to take a step back and look at yourself and how you evaluate things.
You decided to go against the booster because of your feelings, not because of science. You want government decisions to be guided by science, and yet you are very clearly anti-science with your decision making.
> To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year.
What vaccine? There wasn't a vaccine available until Dec 14th 2020.
Are you trying to say if Trump actually cut corners and made the vaccine available earlier than we should have, then people would be mad? Well... duh. The difference is that the left generally follows what the leaders in the scientific community have to say, not the POTUS. The scientific community would have been against cutting corners.
Agreed. Didn't feel orwellian or coerced at all to go to the doctor and get a meningitis shot before heading off to university. Nor did it feel orwellian to get a covid shot to protect my community.
> because of your feelings, not because of science.
For the unaware, there are multitudes of highly acclaimed scientists and academics around the world from top institutions including Nobel prize winners that are advising caution against the vaccine. You don't just get to choose which "science" you listen to. These voices are massively censored so the public doesn't really get to hear both sides of the argument. The whole "don't talk bad about the vaccine lest `vaccine hesitancy`" is evil and plain anti-science.
Yes this is a great point. The primary concerns & warnings are generally around vaccine induced immune escape, which is a realistic consequence of indiscriminate compulsory mass vaccination [1][2][3][4][5][6].
That said, there is general consensus in the literature that the vaccines are mostly safe for adults in the short term. However for certain sub-populations (eg pediatrics and pregnant women) there isn't enough evidence yet from clinical trials and longitudinal studies to conclude with certainty that the benefits of compulsory mass vaccination outweigh the risks.
Lots of down-votes and no replies tells me this is striking some nerves - anyone care to articulate why you disagree with or do not support these statements?
Almost no one on HN is qualified to take a group of medical journal articles/research papers and form an accurate opinion on the subject.
In fact, trying to do so for most on this forum would probably result in inaccurate views due to misunderstanding the articles and papers.
So people probably downvoted because you have a view on the subject, but no one is qualified to back or oppose it. And we don't know who you are, so how are we supposed to vet your view, or even begin to have a conversation about it?
I didn't downvote (or upvote), but that's my guess.
You're going to get some number of people against anything. 96% of doctors were fully vaccinated by June [1], for example. Does the 4% holdout actually worry anyone? It shouldn't.
You also have to double check beyond headlines. For example, I saw people talking about how the FDA EUA panel wasn't a consensus for Pfizer 16+ back in the day. Turns out, most of the people who were hesitant just wanted to start with 18+, not 16+. That's a huge difference from what some of the headlines were saying.
Given everything else is the same, I would support Trump doing the same vaccine requirements that Biden has done, if Trump hypothetically won the election.
If Trump succeeded at gutting the FDA and installing people like Scott Atlas in order to override the career officials and experts at the FDA, or something similar, then yes my answer would likely be different.
Again, the POTUS at the time has nothing to do with the decision making.
Please don't cross into personal attack on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It's against the rules here and only makes things worse.
It was more of a plea than an attack, but I can see why it seemed that way. I'd edit it if I could.
And since you're here, why aren't you doing more to [flag/demote/whatever] content where people are saying that Covid booster shots and their requirements are nothing more than "petty tyrants wanting to control what others do."? Surely that's worse than a small attack on the person saying it?
If there are comments breaking the site guidelines that aren't getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see them. There are far too many for us to see them all.
Referring to authorities as "petty tyrants" or whatever probably doesn't count a personal attack unless the "petty tyrant" is personally in the room. I don't think those comments are very high quality, but this is the internet. Trying to raise comment quality is like trying to lift a tsunami. We do what we can.
I don't agree that personal attacks are "small". I think they are particularly poisonous to community.
I agree I could have been better at not attacking the poster. I'll try to do better (though I'm not allowed to fix my mistake due to site restrictions).
I also think that if vaccine misinformation (which includes that vaccine requirements are just petty tyrants controlling people and not based in science, which is the root post here if you couldn't find it) isn't currently against the current guidelines, then that's an issue.
>Anybody who has ever lived under an HOA will recognize this.
My HOA telling me to take Christmas decorations down in January doesn't really equate to the government trying to keep me and my community alive and out of the hospital. Don't like the HOA covenants? Move. Don't want the vaccine? Stay away from places that will now be allowed to require vaccination.
That will be everywhere. Do you not understand what happens when people feel completely subjugated like this? This is a path to total chaos, devastation and destruction.
Don't want the vaccine? Grow your own food. Going to the supermarket is optional.
Don't want the vaccine? Relocate to one of the designated vaccine-free zones.
Don't want the vaccine? Barter with others in the vaccine-free zones, since banking is only really necessary when participating in society.
Don't want the vaccine? Relocate to one of the vaccine-free camps since access elsewhere requires the vaccine. We can't have these underground bartering exchanges emerging.
Don't mind any of the fear-mongering, people, we're just trying to keep the community alive and out of the hospital. It's for everyone's safety and well-being. These undesirables had every chance to get antibodies from the sources we've deemed valid.
> To many of you here: imagine the Trump admin trying to require you to take the vaccine in November of last year. Cities would have burned over it.
It's very political. There's a bunch of screenshots and videos floating around of left-wing people who didn't trust the vaccine because they perceived it as coming from the Trump administration when it was in place. Now that we've swapped presidents, the side of that have flipped - now a bunch of right-wing people don't trust it because they don't trust the Biden administration.
Oddly, it doesn't seem to bother anyone in either of these camps that it was both developed and pushed through initial testing under the Trump administration, and ramped up to full production and usage and edging towards mandates under the Biden administration.
I agree about the politicization. But the two are not equivalent. Reticence to take a brand new vaccine on a brand new technology that is still untested is not even close to the people that are currently decrying it for safety concerns after 150m people have taken it and clinical trials have been completed.
Correction: there are a bunch of screenshots and videos about people saying they would not trust a vaccine just because President Trump said so. Given all of the awful advice that was common from the then-president (e.g.: hydroxychloroquine), that was perfectly reasonable.
You can probably find exceptions, but the widely spread examples I am aware of all then went on to talk about believing it when it came from the CDC and other authorities.
I would argue that there has been little flipping. Those who were not going to get the vaccine under President Trump are also not going to get it under President Biden. The recent "boo"ing of former President Trump at his recent rally when he recommended people get vaccines is just the latest evidence of that.
I don't think you're going to have that option regarding the booster. It is a critical step towards a social credit system that governments won't let go of. Just get the boost
Like someone else mentioned, I think the core issue is "Should the government have the right to mandate medical procedures?"
In my mind, I'm vaccinated, so what does it matter to me if others are not?
That argument makes sense only if the borders were shut down though -- right ?
I'm pro vaccine, but even if everyone in the US got vaccinated in the next month we would still have to worry about vaccine-resistant variants coming in via other places.
> or a vaccinated person might get sick from the virus that they were vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated
The statement is true. If you're not vaccinated, and you get COVID, there's a non-zero chance that you'll be the source of someone else's breakthrough case.
This statement is also true: If you're vaccinated, and you get COVID, there's a non-zero chance that you'll be the source of someone else's breakthrough case.
So, the quote is kind of useless. The unvaccinated probably do spread COVID faster and with more frequency. So, the directionality of the quote is fine. But it reads like a boolean statement, which is incorrect. COVID is almost certainly endemic at this point. Vaccines clearly help, but it's incorrect to blame all of the mutations and spread on the unvaccinated.
> The unvaccinated probably do spread COVID faster and with more frequency.
In practice, do they really? If you're vaccinated and catch COVID, you're probably fine, so you go about your life. If you're unvaccinated, you're more likely to get sick and thus stay home. You're also more likely to build up natural immunity. Seems to me like now that we know being vaccinated doesn't prevent transmission, we should want the anti-vaxxers to not get vaxxed, as we'll all reach herd immunity faster and they're less likely to get us sick.
> The unvaccinated probably do spread COVID faster and with more frequency.
No, it's the other way around. Transmission is correlated with viral load. In the unvaccinated, high viral load leads to early self-observable symptoms. The vaccines are designed to suppress symptoms, so a vaccinated person can be infected and transmitting, without knowing they should be isolating. That's why the CDC recommends testing of vaccinated people after exposure, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210729/cdc-reverses-guidan... (July 29, 2021)
> Even if they’re not showing symptoms, fully vaccinated people should “get tested 3-5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result,” ... “Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told The New York Times
In dense urban areas, many of the remaining "unvaccinated" are likely to be Covid survivors with natural immunity, which offers nasal/mucosal immunity in upper respiratory tract, which is not possible with intramuscular (arm deltoid injection) vaccines. A future nasal vaccine may offer such protection.
Up-voted because this is a complex dynamic that many people seem to be unaware of, or fall victim to over-simplification when discussing. The scientific literature supports the fact that vaccination reduces symptoms and reduces duration and intensity of viral shedding - but immunity acquired through natural infection also has the same effect.
So many people talk about "vaccinated versus unvaccinated", but this dualistic framing is not conducive to scientifically accurate discussion. There are at least three groups of people to acknowledge:
A) vaccinated
B) immune via natural infection
C) immunologically naive (have never been exposed to the virus)
The A & B groups will have very similar characteristics in terms of individual risks and risks to others. Group C is what many people mean to refer to when they say "unvaccinated people spread COVID faster and with more frequency".
I cannot receive the vaccine due to a medical condition and I can't wait for group B to get the same first-class citizen privileges as group A. I've been sick, recovered, and have some form of resistance.
If you haven't seen it already, you might be interested in the legal precedent being set at George Mason University by Professor Zywicki. See this discussion [1] and my comment [2] for more details.
> No, it's the other way around. Transmission is correlated with viral load. In the unvaccinated, high viral load leads to early self-observable symptoms. The vaccines are designed to suppress symptoms, so a vaccinated person can be infected and transmitting, without knowing they should be isolating.
You're saying, confidently, that vaccinated people spread more COVID than un-vaccinated people? A bold strategy!
It's probably correct that lots of spread is happening because people feel OK, but that's because (especially with Delta) viral load typically peaks before symptoms show up[1]. That is, the most infectious period is probably before anyone feels symptoms, vaccinated or not. But of course the vaccines significantly reduce the chance of getting infected in the first place, and when you directly measure the secondary attack rate, instead of looking at a proxy like RT-PCR Ct, vaccination also seems to significantly lower that[2].
The take-away should be that we should mask up and try to isolate independent of vaccination status. Sadly, lots of vaccinated people think the ride is over for them and behave accordingly, in addition to the ones who never cared in the first place. We may see the fruits of that in winter, when the freshly normalized carelessness might lead to a larger increase in infections.
The opposite could happen though. "Vaccination" allows for the virus to mutate to a more lethal strain since it does not sterilize the host. See Marek's disease:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek's_disease
Vaccines reduce the likelihood and severity of getting a disease, but they don't block it 100% for 100% of people.
Additionally, some people can't get vaccinated, or vaccines only work more weakly for them.
Also also, pandemics have knock on effects beyond just the people who get sick, in terms of economic impact, as well as societal rules and restrictions, e.g. schools closing down because of too many sick people, medical procedures getting delayed because the ICU is overwhelmed, etc.
No person is an island; even someone who hypothetically somehow had magical superimmunity from the start of the pandemic would still be facing its effects.
The vaccinations both reduce the likelihood that you will get COVID, and the likelihood that you will end up requiring hospitalization. For example, while the Israeli study in another HN article found that two shots of the Pfizer vaccine is 39-41% effective against infection of the Delta strain, it is 91% effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization.
The goal is to reduce the load on the healthcare system. Expanding ICU capacity to always support COVID peak would be expensive, both from the infrastructure and staffing perspectives.
Since the Delta variant is making kids sick, and we don't have a vaccine for kids who are 12 and under yet, we're going to see more kids end up in the ICU.
Also, the Delta variant is 2-3x as transmissible as the COVID strains we've seen before.
The claims that vaccines put evolutionary pressure on the virus to create more virulent strains don't seem that credible when you consider India is seeing new strains develop with a 6% vaccination rate.
A rebuttal would be that we should get vaccinated so we don't die while taking up scarce resources for no real reason.
Really? Because if others are the pandemic will end and mutations won’t happen and if you need to go to the hospital it won’t be over booked. And a myriad of other reasons.
Question for everyone defending and promoting mRNA (1st ever approved 2020) and viral vector vaccines (2019) - do you also use all your software in Alpha/Beta versions and never wait for Stable?
Or is it just your body you DGAF, but you have higher requirements for software?
Community + mRNA, if I'm remembering right. Marketing is a joke for these ones. Every government agency on earth is doing the marketing for them for free.
Honestly, one of my life goals is to somehow tap into creating a plausibly excusable place for companies to dump their marketing dollars, I feel like that's one of the secrets to an easy life.
Can you point to any papers demonstrating natural immunity? I ask as my virologist friend, working on covid-related projects, says to me that it hasn't been shown to be plausible. Which, intuitively, makes sense because of (1) the positive effects vaccines have on reducing severity of the disease and (2) the cycle of variants we see and its path forward.
Yes, the whole argument of vaccines, lockdowns, masks are moot when you consider that the default position should have always been - if you're scared of the virus, stay home. If the virus was that dangerous, we would not need a global marketing campaign to tell us to how to be safe. The last 2 years defies all logic and common sense.
The risk of dying or long-term complications from COVID if you're under 50 is not insignificant, especially on the upper end. Here's a pretty good graph of the estimated IFR by age [1]. (So far, there hasn't been a significant difference in lethality in the new strains).
The graph shows about a .1% chance of death at age 50 if you catch COVID-19. The chance of hospitalization and potential long-term symptoms is a multiple of that.
Vaccinated folks have a lower chance of catching COVID, so as a whole, they have a lower chance of spreading it.
A large number of those objecting to the vaccine have serious needle phobia and don't wish to admit this publicly.
The most common presentation is mild anxiety, but in more serious instances, a needle phobic person may pass out or be genuinely convinced they are having a cardiac arrest.
There are alternative delivery methods being tested, such as by Pharmajet.
I suspect that when needle phobia is addressed in a less hostile light, you may find an increase in uptake.
All of these comments following the pattern "I'm vaccinated but [insert vaccine hesitancy content here]" sound quite a lot like the "I'm a democrat but [insert pro-trump content]" comments that abounded in the last cycle.
I don't know what to make of it. Is this a rhetorical strategy that really works? A tic of people experiencing cognitive dissonance?
I think it's "please don't reflexively ignore the opinion that I am about to express, which is the kind of opinion that people on the other side reflexively ignore".
Yes this is exactly why people are prefacing their comments with such details, because after participating in enough HN discussions on topics like these you'll quickly realize how reflexive people can be - down-voting and flagging without any charitable interpretation or engaging in nuanced and informed responses that tease out the important themes of the discussion.
Its totally healthy to both believe that the vaccine makes sense for you, and still respect, love, include, and accomodate people who decide it isn't right for them. We're all different, and the world is very complicated; that's what makes life so awesome.
That's a nice sentiment[1], but why couch it in such an odd construction? "I took it, but here's a bunch of reasons not to" doesn't come across as an argument for equanimity and individual decision making, it comes across as an argument not to take it.
[1]: though 'include' carries a _lot_ of potential interpretations there :)
Its a common turn of phrase in modern English. Everyone talks like that. I know its in vogue right now to assume everyone who doesn't agree with you is a bot or paid shill for some agenda seeking group, and maybe many of them are. But not everyone. People really do talk this way in every day conversation.
As for mine. I got my first shot in December. Probably one of the first in my area. Got second 2 weeks after. I think everyone should get it as soon as they are comfortable with doing so. There is such a thing as being unreasonably suspicious and antivaxxers fall into that pretty easily but there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting more than emergency approval. Furthermore, private companies can definitely make it a term of employment but I am strongly against the government requiring it. I am a firm believer that everyone has the right to be a dumbass.
Everyone interprets arguments differently. Some reason against the vaccine may be insufficient to dissuade you, but it may dissuade another.
"I took it, but here's a bunch of reasons to not to" is THE best argument for equanimity and individual decision making; its Informed Consent. You should try to learn everything you can; the stuff the media tells you, the stuff the government tells you, the stuff doctors tell you, and even the stuff on the hard anti-vax it'll give you autism side says. Take all of it with a grain of salt, but different amounts of salt depending on the credentials and biases of the source. Sieve it through your own personal belief system. Then act to your beliefs. You'll probably be wrong, but you were already wrong before; the goal isn't to always be right, but to continually improve your ability to recognize when you're wrong.
There is no one truth to any aspect of our reality. You may actually find some compelling arguments against a belief system you once had. For example, one soft anti-vax argument I've heard recently stuck with me: that these vaccines are effectively the "kills 99.9% of germs" equivalent of ultra-fast evolving viruses, imperfect vaccines which allow both the host to live and the virus to evolve, thus creating even more vaccine resistant strains of COVID. And, maybe, at a global public health level, these vaccines are a REALLY bad idea long-term, and our efforts to save a few million people today will kill millions more in the future. Maybe. Its hard to say, but its an interesting thought.
You won't hear that from the CDC. Their bias in PR right now is: everyone get vaccinated, downplay anything negative about the vaccine, don't allow for nuance because we can't trust the public with nuance, we just need them vaccinated. That's fine! Its a legitimate goal that will almost definitely result in a lot of good. But that doesn't mean the whole truth is everything they say.
Scientific matter:
Vaccines save lives, protect people around you and improve your personal odds as well. (I am a biochemist)
Political matter:
What is the extent to which we want to allow people to make their own decisions when these decisions have an impact on the well-being of others?
Whatever your answer to the second question is (an exercise which I leave to the reader) is going to have an impact on the degree of inclusion and on the degree of accommodation that should be extended to people who choose not to vaccinate. Respect and love is possible and encouraged in all cases.
As a bonus, for further consideration...
Ethical matter:
What is the moral value of an ill-informed decision, and is the moral value of an ill-informed decision sufficient to support the principle of individual autonomy?
Nearly every decision one makes has an impact on the well-being of others. On the one end, you can't shoot someone just because you feel like it. On the other end, a teenage boy asks a girl out, the girl Decides to reject him, and he is so devastated he commits suicide. Somewhere in the middle, I decide to drive to work today, my wheel goes flying off, I careen into oncoming traffic killing myself and another; if only I had Decided to take the bus today.
Obviously we, as a society, draw a line somewhere. I don't know if where we draw that line today is actually the correct place, or if there even is a "correct" place to draw it.
My opinion on vaccine mandates, right now, is: They're probably bad. Not because of personal liberty, though that may be a valid argument; I'm just not sure (I'm not sure I'll ever be sure; I'm willing to admit that decision is above my pay grade). But because the vaccines we have right now are actually not great at stopping the spread of the virus. They do save lives and keep people out of the hospital, but that's separate from the argument that they keep your coworkers safe. We're definitely sacrificing personal liberty, which may be bad, for tenuous benefit.
There's another similar argument: Keeping preventable cases out of the Hospital is a public good, because medical care is a limited resource that is VERY stressed right now. This, actually, resonates more with me. I think this is a stronger argument for vaccine mandates. Your personal liberties may have to end when you call 911 and expect someone else to answer and save your life, and I think demanding wide vaccination is morally superior to refusing care to a dying man because he chose not to get vaccinated.
But the bigger issue with this argument is determining why the medical system is so close to the brink of collapse; I suspect it has less to do with COVID, and more to do with doctors and nurses being treated like shit, which significantly pre-dates COVID, leading to burnout and people leaving the industry. I have a vivid memory from 20 years ago, being 10 or something, sitting in the car with my mom after her nurse shift, she's near tears and asks me if I think its fair that Brittany Spears can make millions but nurses make almost nothing. I still feel guilt today, making so much money in tech, while our nurses (and teachers, and many other insanely important industries) make so little; it isn't right. If we, as a society, were significantly better at supporting our healthcare providers, its possible we could support personal liberty and manage the consequences of that liberty, at least in this domain. (and, to be clear, that support isn't just paying more; its also mental health, and time off, and streamlining management, and training more people to join the industry. its a big problem)
There's also one argument against mandates which resonates very well with me: That the systems we have in place to validate vaccinations rarely take into account natural immunity. If this were intentional, e.g. natural immunity sucks so we need you to get a vaccine, then that's one thing. But it seems like this is a discussion we simply haven't had, in the US. Natural immunity seems to be a thing, so we should be inclusive and give people that path. But we aren't; we demand the Record Card. This seems to be a net bad; either policymakers need to say "natural immunity isn't effective at stopping infection" or mandates need to allow for a positive test result, at any point in the past (e.g.) year, to be sufficient as a replacement for a vaccine.
One local company has taken on the policy "vaccination or get tested twice a week". This is utter insanity, and its a big reason why so much of America, on both sides of the political spectrum but especially the right, has lost faith in the system. These policies essentially, to many people, say "sacrifice your personal liberty, or significantly inconvenience both you and our health care system by getting tested a ton." Private companies should not have the ability to put that kind of stress on our already stressed health care system in the dumb pursuit of utilizing their expensive office real estate. At the very least, the government needs to step in and say that companies cannot demand ongoing testing; that I 100% support. If a company decides to mandate only vaccination after that, I think that's far more gray, and while I am fully vaccinated, it still doesn't sit right with me. But, maybe its the right decision for them and their workers.
Policymakers play the hand they're dealt; disliking a policy because you dislike the conditions it's predicated on is a valid thing to feel, but not an argument that the the policy is wrong or suboptimal. It would be better if the healthcare system were less burdened, but 'dramatically increase capacity of the healthcare system' was not a feasible response to the acute crisis of the last 18 months. Of course we should work toward that (and in particular toward making a more elastic healthcare system) but that's a long term solution, and under-provisioned in a crunch to over-provisioned during slack is two problems, not none.
The naturally immunity thing is fraught. Accepting for argument that naturally immunity is exactly as good as the best vaccine, it's reasonable to equate vaccinated and recovered at a point in time. Covid has done all the damage it's going to do to the recovered group, and both are as protected as the other going forward (per assumption).
However, offering 'vaccine or recovery' as an option going forward is more harmful if there are any remaining unvaccinated/uninfected people. Some _will_ choose the 'recovery' option, at immense personal (illness, possible long-term damage, possible death) and societal (health-care over-burden, transmission effects, etc.) expense. Splitting the currently-recovered from uninfected/unvaccinated for policy-making purposes would require either faith in self-reporting or significant invasion into health records. Neither seem tenable in the US, for obvious reasons of culture and law. IIRC other countries are taking that route.
Which leaves you, I think, where your comment started. Are the external costs of assuming the risk large enough that policy should proscribe that option and mandate vaccines?
The fact you "don't know what to make of it" implies you haven't noticed how hard it is to convey sane opinions that align with team A to people of team B out of fear of being ostracized. If you haven't noticed this, now you know, and so don't need to be puzzled about why people do this to try to avoid being labelled and demonized.
Don't know what to make of the frequency, to be precise. I understand the difficulty there, I'm just surprised that the prophylactic "I'm a ___" is so prevalent and apparently so effective.
They could be like me: a weak person who took it because I was forced, but I still don't agree it's worth the risk for young people (I'd definitely agree for very old people).
What makes you think it isn't worth the risk for young people i.e. what are the risks of the vaccine that you are worried about compared to the risks of covid for a young person?
Based on Israel's vaccine data, we would need to see 2/100k 20-29 year olds or 6/100k 30-39 year olds die or experience side affects worse than severe covid for it to make sense to avoid the vaccine.
It is a desperate plea for people to not be written off entirely out of tribal affiliation.
Discussion has devolved into two camps largely villainizing each other, so it is an appeal to address the content of their posts opposed to some claim of the 5G/ microchip/ reptilian crowd
There are people with long term issues starting right after vaccination. Not safety issues, which everyone and their dog studies, just multi-month constant pain that will not kill you but just disables you from your normal life for months, that is not solvable by regular NSAIDs, as usual, and that you'll get no compensation for from anyone.
I'm just interested in how common this is after vaccination, and perhaps when may this end, so I again spent a few hours yesterday to try to find some significant (N > 5000, preferably more) independent prospective studies of "mild" side effects like these of this vaccine.
So much vaccination going on, so why not just give every 5th person vaccinated in some large center a link and a code to enter observed side effects after 1 day, 3 days, week, and a month, and then maybe 3 months after into some website. Maybe ask for a phone number and call them to ask, if they don't fill the form in time. Even such a stupid study design would satisfy me.
No such thing on google scholar.
There are barely any studies that track side effects over time. It's almost all just binary X,Y,Z side effects after vaccine - yes/no. All studies I could find are < 1000 people or in that range.
The small amount of studies that actually tracked side effects over time, just track for 7 days and end with 4% people still having side effects after a week. One Czech study I found tracked side effects for a month! With 2% having still issues after a month. Well, good! No, not really, N<1000 again, and a biased survey style study.
Also the fucking irony of search returning about 5-10x more so called "hesitancy" studies per a side effect survey, despite me not search for it.
I'm fully vaccinated, and there's no shortage of studies about efficacy, so no problem there. But people that proclaim how well the side effects are studied, because of how many millions of people were already vaccinated just sound ridiculous to me now. Where are all the actual studies?
From what can be found it just seems that very little fuck is given about serious study of so called "mild" side effects, and some guidance given on how to mitigate them, based on results.
("no compensation for from anyone" is because my country actually passed a law that allows for compensation for covid vaccine gone wrong; but with no proof of some statistical relationship, this was just another bullshit anti-hesitancy stunt from the government, and will be of no real help to the affected)
> why not just give every 5th person vaccinated in some large center a link and a code to enter observed side effects after 1 day, 3 days, week, and a month, and then maybe 3 months after into some website.
The CDC ran such a study. IDK about results, or how many people participated.
When I got mine, everyone was being given a paper with instructions showing how to sign up for the CDC symptom tracker. It was pretty easy and they would text you every day and ask you about symptoms etc. Eventually it tapered to weekly. After the second shot you updated that and it started asking you daily again. I got a prompt a few weeks ago (multiple months after second shot).
At this point, a practical course of action would be to ignore dialectical pro/con arguments from paid and unpaid influencers on both sides, along with conflicted institutions that even on their best day cannot keep up with the pace of modern society.
Can we create an open-source tool that supplements the much-criticized VAERS, which is at least government (i.e. taxpayer) funded, regulated and provides open data for developers? Use standard analytics to extract the most common side effects, then start collecting crowdsourced data not only on side effects, but most importantly, on TREATMENTS and MITIGATIONS for those, especially the mild-but-life-affecting ones that don't justify R&D with future billion-dollar revenue streams.
It's true that systematic surveillance of vaccine side effects is poor. For example, even when HPV vaccination of teenage girls became a thing, one of the obvious side effects you'd guess will freak out teenage girls (changes in menstruation) wasn't tracked very well. We genuinely don't know beyond "Clearly not drastic enough that it caused significant medical problems" whether this is something that was noticeable above background levels.
However one problem we have is that for mere side effects ("My arm aches a bit", "My period was a week late", "I feel kinda sleepy in the morning") we don't have good baseline data to compare with. I'd quite like to see someone study, e.g. if we change the Facebook blue colour slightly, and ask a study cohort, what medical "side effects" do they report for that? Clearly someone in a large survey population will report that their right thumb hurts now, and we can reason (but not prove) that's not going to be a direct result of the CSS change, but measuring what this noise looks like would provide a baseline for low risk vaccinations.
Though at least with pain, you could compare with previous reports from that same person. Pain started day 1, never subsided until 2 months after. Pain starting at 2 months is probably not a side effect, unless it's something that consistently shows up in the data after the same period of time since vaccination (background noise would not).
Maybe add a self-reported intensity scale for the symptoms.
Anyway, I can see why studies like these can be hard.
One other reason more studies would be useful, is that for the person I know, this happened after the first dose.
That means that at the moment there's just no reasonable way to decide whether it's safe to get a second dose or not. If there were studies that would show that almost nobody has a lasting head pain post vaccination, then one could conclude it's probably just a super weird coincidence, and take a risk with a second dose, to at least get the full protection against covid-19.
Without data the most prudent thing is to do no further harm to oneself, and live with increased risk of infection and all the restrictions and increased costs that are put on unvaccinated.
[Posted in case it provides a data point for your friend to discuss with a local doctor, not to debate this doctor's affiliation, credentials or motivation. Would love to see more presentations of physical evidence from autopsies and lab tests, to complement statistical studies.]
I guess we can look to places like Israel where there is nearly 100 percent, and the UK where there is a very high vaccination rate esp in the over 50s.
If you go to the gp/doctor and you tell them you are suffering issues after a vaccine they have to (by law) pass that on to the regulator and to the vaccine manufacturer. In Israel and in the UK reports to doctors about longer term side effects of the vaccine are within and below the expected ranges.
Reports on twitter may be high, reports to doctors remain low. You can draw your own conclusions.
I feel your pain, my wife got long covid back before that was at least accepted to be a thing. At first doctors are very dismissive, but gradually there were a critical mass of people able to demonstrate measurable symptoms.
Here is hoping that somehow your friends symptoms pass soon and are mild.
After seeing what long covid can do to a healthy 40yo woman with no preexisting conditions, where no one understands them at first, I can imagine the stress.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope your wife is feeling better now. Here it's not so much that the doctors are dismissive, they just don't know what it is.
ER neurologist she saw was not very surprised/dismissive, because she apparently went through a nasty reaction to the vaccine herself. And GP was also accepting, did run some diagnostics, but ultimately it's all back to hoping it will resolve by itself (+ as always, some analgesics).
I don't get why people are so afraid of the VaaS model (vaccine as a service). If we already buy all our entertainment on a monthly basis, then I don't see an issue in mandating quarterly or biannual immune system boosters to protect against the virus. Vaccine passports are a different issue. I would probably sign up for VaaS, but governments could use mandates aggressively, and it's not far off to imagine how people end up in concentration camps from there. As Plato put it, democracy ends in tyranny, so this is to be expected/embraced
The real question is whether covid or all the in-fighting around politicization of covid is doing more harm to society. I almost think it's all the in-fighting and social discord.
So with that in mind, I'm much more keen on seeing how employers will decide on vaccination mandates now that at least one vaccine is fully approved. Any news yet on whether any more employers are likely implementing mandates (if they haven't already this morning) based on the news? Guessing a few probably had their policies and news pre-written in anticipation.
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