3 ms·

You have to compare the risks to the risks of the disease and the likelyhood of contracting that disease. And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. It doesn't m

You have to compare the risks to the risks of the disease and the likelyhood of contracting that disease. And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. It doesn't make much sense to me to trade the very high known risks of COVID-19 against the relatively low risk of rare side effects in a vaccine. These vaccines have been tested in ~40,000 people each, so we do know quite a bit about their safety. The fatality rate of COVID-19 and the rate of serious complications is high enough that it easily dwarfs the chance of any potential rare side effects of the vaccines.

waihtis 6y ago
True, there may be a serious tendency of overweighing small probabilities and underweighing large ones in play here.
SifJar 6y ago
> These vaccines have been tested in ~40,000 people each, so we do know quite a bit about their safety. We know quite a bit about their short term safety. It's impossible to know for sure if there is any long term side effect. But that is probably a risk we have to take to get past the immediate threat of covid-19.
- anthonypasq 6y ago
  vaccines pretty much never have long term side effects
  - parliament32 6y ago
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079217300011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...
  - grillvogel 6y ago
    so because other unrelated vaccines that have existed for a long time and known to have no long term side effects, we should assume that this brand new vaccine has no long term side effects?
jMyles 6y ago
> And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. If this is indeed the point of contention - balancing the risk of adverse outcomes from a rushed vaccine vs those from a virus, I think it's inaccurate to say that the risks from this virus, understood generally across the population, are "very high". The likelihood of contracting it is of course very high, but the risk of adverse effects are only high for a relatively small stratum of the population. It makes sense to reserve "very high" for pathogens like HIV or Ebola, not SARS-CoV-2. For a very large majority of the population, SARS-CoV-2 has approximately equal risk to the four seasonally circulating coronaviruses, so even a small risk from an overlooked data point might be significant. We need to reach herd immunity one way or another, so I'm not sure the discussion of individual risk is the right one. With no data being available for patients to examine ourselves, it's hard to even know how to make these decisions.
grillvogel 6y ago
the risks of covid are very low for ~99% of the population IMO the risks of an rushed new vaccine are much higher
svrb 6y ago
> And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. Do you have an actual source for that? People keep repeating it over and over but I've seen no evidence that COVID-19 carries particularly high risk compared to other infectious diseases.

waihtis 6y ago

True, there may be a serious tendency of overweighing small probabilities and underweighing large ones in play here.

SifJar 6y ago

> These vaccines have been tested in ~40,000 people each, so we do know quite a bit about their safety. We know quite a bit about their short term safety. It's impossible to know for sure if there is any long term side effect. But that is probably a risk we have to take to get past the immediate threat of covid-19.

anthonypasq 6y ago
vaccines pretty much never have long term side effects
- parliament32 6y ago
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079217300011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...
- grillvogel 6y ago
  so because other unrelated vaccines that have existed for a long time and known to have no long term side effects, we should assume that this brand new vaccine has no long term side effects?

jMyles 6y ago

> And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. If this is indeed the point of contention - balancing the risk of adverse outcomes from a rushed vaccine vs those from a virus, I think it's inaccurate to say that the risks from this virus, understood generally across the population, are "very high". The likelihood of contracting it is of course very high, but the risk of adverse effects are only high for a relatively small stratum of the population. It makes sense to reserve "very high" for pathogens like HIV or Ebola, not SARS-CoV-2. For a very large majority of the population, SARS-CoV-2 has approximately equal risk to the four seasonally circulating coronaviruses, so even a small risk from an overlooked data point might be significant. We need to reach herd immunity one way or another, so I'm not sure the discussion of individual risk is the right one. With no data being available for patients to examine ourselves, it's hard to even know how to make these decisions.

grillvogel 6y ago

the risks of covid are very low for ~99% of the population IMO the risks of an rushed new vaccine are much higher

svrb 6y ago

> And for COVID-19 the risks are very high. Do you have an actual source for that? People keep repeating it over and over but I've seen no evidence that COVID-19 carries particularly high risk compared to other infectious diseases.