> Hard to take much meaning away from that without understanding the risk posed by not vaccinating.
What's the benefit from vaccinating otherwise healthy young men against Covid? Not people in risk groups, but healthy young men.
It should be obvious that if your clinical trials cannot rule out major adverse events in 1 in N, you shouldn't vaccinate populations in which the benefit occurs in less than 1 in N.
> If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome, that's another potential cost benefit analysis.
Even if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for society you cannot make that calculation. You cannot administer a vaccine to a healthy person just because it doesn't increase their risk of dying as much as it decreases someone else's risk of surviving. Young healthy men should not be coerced into accepting an elevated risk because getting to herd immunity or whatever might save old and at risk persons.
For children and healthy young people below the age of 30, Covid is mostly harmless (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717). The risk of vaccination may actually be higher since the vaccines currently used aren't fully researched nor fully approved yet. The situation is not black or white. Vaccination may be very useful for people aged 50 and above but at the same time counterproductive for children.
"People choosing not to vaccinate are putting him at risk". This might not exactly be the strongest point to make, as the Covid IFR rate for those under 17 is 20 in 1,000,000, or a 99.998% survival rate. Sure, there's a non-zero chance of death but it's effectively zero. It's great to say we should reduce risks further as a society, but is it really worth the costs to reduce risks like that further?
> And especially is there studies showing that people under the age of 40 in healthy condition have any benefit regarding long covid by taking the vaccine ?
If you mean risk of long-covid after getting covid with vs. without the vaccine: of course we don't know, but it's pretty likely the vaccine significantly decreases the chance of long covid. Since long-covid correlates well with infection severity, and the vaccine is particularly good at preventing severe infections.
If you mean the chance of people who already have long-covid recovering after getting vaccinated - it's pretty low.
> Well, some people don't like to take drugs, so if they know that their immune system can cope with it (even if that means difficult time for a short time) they would prefer it.
Ok. But still, "drug" is an arbitrary label, the vaccine consists of mRNA and other compounds which are in your body. I get taking risks and not being over-careful, like I definitely get why lockdowns / even masking in some situations is a bad idea. But the risk of not getting vaccinated is an unnecessary risk, kind of like driving without a seatbelt or riding without a helmet, except you only have to wear the helmet initially (idk I can't think of a better analogy).
>But people are really bad at doing the math when it comes to the risk of serious complications or death from covid vs the risk of serious complications from vaccines. It's a difference of several orders of magnitude.
Covid risks are not evenly distributed throughout the population. An extreme majority of serious cases are people older than 65, fat people, or people with other existing health issues.
If you are young, healthy, and active you are at virtually zero risk of Covid. If you are under 25, healthy, and active there is practically no personal health reason to get vaccinated for Covid.
Also, we are talking multiple shots and boosters, not a single vaccination. If young, healthy males are not in the high-risk group for a COVID infection, then why recommend several vaccines to them that carry this risk? How about not recommending it to healthy, young people like Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark have done. And we are still at less than 3 years since the vaccine was first administered. There are still ongoing studies, however, Pfizer invalidated their long-term study by vaccinating their control group under the guise of worrying about the control group's health & safety.
> but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common?
You forgot to account for the risk of getting the virus. If you choose to get the vaccine, the probability is 1. But what's the probability of getting Covid? Definitely less than 1.
For certain age groups (young men), the risk of complications * probability of getting the vaccine (1) was more than the risk of complications from COVID * the probability of getting it (let's say 0.25 or so).
Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people...
> We really need cost-benefits of adverse effects v. COVID outcomes stratified by ages, and it takes more than one study to build the picture.
Also when taking this into account, one must take note that many who have had the vaccine still end up getting COVID at some point, so the additional adverse effects that COVID brings may add onto any risks the vaccine brought.
> Even the small rate of death from COVID for young people is going to be higher than that risk.
But it doesn't mean that you will surely get COVID if you refuse to get a shot. Also, some people claim the vaccines are not very effective against some variants such as the South African one. So it means you can get vaccinated, suffer some serious side effects, and once you are recovered, get COVID.
> "They knew it was far less likely than complications from COVID"
COVID has numerous variants. Which variant are you discussing? Indeed, the first variant was serious. But what of the later variants like Omicron? Virtually all research I have read about vaccination risk includes cases from 2020 in their assessment, as opposed to separately comparing vaccination risk to each variant.
> "SARS-CoV-2 doesn't give you a choice about whether you get treated with the virus. You could weigh the risks vs. benefits of being infected with or without the vaccine"
I'm not sure what you mean here, for I already got COVID and it was extremely mild given that I am young and healthy. The risk-benefit ratio varies for each individual, and note that it also depends on the Covid variant. Why should I get vaccinated when I already have natural immunity, which is at least as good, if not superior, to protection from vaccination (from a peer-reviewed publication in the Lancet)?
Right. The article is arguing against vaccinating people who already had covid. I'm saying the data shows there's significant benefit to vaccination even if you were already infected.
i'm interpreting this as: they're making a connection between reduced (but not eliminted) long covid risk after vaccination (compared to a higher risk when not being vaccinated at all).
>risk of Covid is much higher and the risk of adverse effects are approximately zero for getting the vaccine.
Where is your data for this?
What is the risk of a naturally immune person catching Covid, and being either a)symptomatic, b)hospitalized, or c)killed?
How does this risk compare to the risk of a serious adverse event or long-term consequence such as autoimmune disease from the vaccine in a healthy young man?
> it's "on an individual basis, the risk-reward ratio of certain vaccines is not worth it."
That's not really true though. The risks involved in getting a vaccine are much, much smaller than the risks involved in not getting the vaccine, especially with diseases like Covid.
It's probably not so helpful to look at absolute numbers of cases rather than risk reduction. If men under 30 already have a very low risk from Covid and there is an alternate vaccine available, then this policy makes a lot of sense. This is the sort of caution we used to expect from our drug regulators.
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?
There's a lot of nuance that you're not taking into account. For example, previously infected benefit minimally from getting vaccinated (they're already better protected than non-infected but vaccinated individuals). The risks of covid are strongly correlated with age and healthiness, as are risks of vaccines (e.g. affects particularly young men). There's many variables that individuals can take into account when deciding what to do.
Note that I'm mainly criticising anti-scientific propaganda sold as science, and forced vaccinations, not vaccination itself (in general or specifically for COVID).
What's the benefit from vaccinating otherwise healthy young men against Covid? Not people in risk groups, but healthy young men.
It should be obvious that if your clinical trials cannot rule out major adverse events in 1 in N, you shouldn't vaccinate populations in which the benefit occurs in less than 1 in N.
> If vaccines can prevent long COVID or "post viral syndrome, that's another potential cost benefit analysis.
That's a big "If".
reply