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There are 200,000 new cases in the United States every day, and nearly 3,000 people dying from this every day. This vaccine will help to arrest the free-fall, a

There are 200,000 new cases in the United States every day, and nearly 3,000 people dying from this every day. This vaccine will help to arrest the free-fall, and help us get this whole thing under control. It will restore ICU capacity, and open-up hospitals again, so that those with immunocompromised conditions (alongside a hell of a lot of other conditions) will finally be able to get in to see their doctor. It will also stop killing their doctors. I assure you that your immunocompromised friends and family will benefit significantly from getting people vaccinated, in the same way that they currently benefit from vaccination campaigns surrounding seasonal influenza. Not only that, I'm sure your severely immunocompromised friends and family will appreciate actually being able to get their hands on N95s again. If your friends and family are that immunocompromised, you should be wearing a mask around them anyway, because they're very vulnerable to a hell of a lot more bugs that you could be toting around than just SARS-Cov-2 . But, understand that if you live in the United States, there are thousands and thousands of people dying every day from a raging, uncontrolled pandemic that a significant percentage of the population has chosen to simply ignore. I am not the enemy here man. If you think the enemy is someone on HackerNews who actually takes the time to read the papers you cite, you need to take a trip to an Oklahoma WalMart. Remember, I'm not the guy you need to convince to be cautious. I'm the guy advocating the public health benefits of vaccination, not the guy running around telling people that masks are for pussies and that vaccines will give you autism. You have to have a sense of perspective about this whole thing. These vaccines are awesome. They are literally a wonder of modern biotechnology. This technology is pretty much completely novel! This is a net plus for the entire human species.

acqq 6y ago
I'm not denying the known awesomeness of vaccines. I'm denying your currently provably false claims about the extent of their awesomeness, and I've linked to the proofs and specified exactly what you have claimed but what's provably not supported at the moment. I see you don't try anymore to claim what you initially claimed, and that's good. Your claim "you should be wearing a mask around them anyway, because they're very vulnerable to a hell of a lot more bugs that you could be toting around than just SARS-Cov-2" is also wrong. It's also provable, and was easy to read in the press for months, that many people who would otherwise live decades longer, without people around them wearing masks, already died form SARS-Cov-2. There are still many such who have tried to protect themselves in these months but who will be more exposed to those who would wrongly believe in "sterilizing immunity" of the vaccine if there is no such. So it's important to be scientifically accurate. At the current moment, all we know is that the vaccines protect the vaccinated from getting sick. We still don't know that the vaccinated can't transmit the virus to the vulnerable, and until we know that, we must say that we don't know that and protect the vulnerable! As Lawrence Rifkin MD writes, also at the moment on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25287076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25287076 "So when facing loss of innocent life in a house fire, cry openly. Allow yourself to hurt deeply. Comfort the bereaved. But don’t say “it was meant to be” or “they’re in a better place.” Go out and promote stoves with smoke-sensing, automatic shut-off valves. The fact that we have the ability, through conscious choice and action, to change the world and make it a better place is a fundamental wonder of being human. It’s what being good is. Not for the benefit of some other world, but for this, our one world; not for some supernatural being, but for our fellow beings."
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  I still don't buy the evidence you've given. Sure, there's not hard clinical evidence that I can point to that demonstrates that there is zero viral shedding from vaccinated individuals. But I don't claim that. I claim that it is highly likely that it knocks down viral shedding significantly. My reading of the monkey paper you cited earlier demonstrates to me a clear mechanism for reduction in viral shedding through the lower airway, thus reducing viral transmission through respiratory droplets during vocalization! I don't think you're drawing a distinction between pathologically immunocompromised individuals, and individuals who may not have as robust an immune response as others, but who can receive a vaccine. In someone who is pathologically immunocompromised, you should 100% be wearing a mask around them normally. They are not safe if you do not because they are vulnerable to a wide number of pathogens. If they are simply elderly or at-risk, let's get them vaccinated! My mom is elderly and very vulnerable, but she is not pathologically immunocompromised. She has a reaction to flu vaccines. I will most definitely be recommending to her that she receive either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine. There may be an adverse reaction, but she'll be a hell of a lot safer than if she didn't receive the vaccine and catches COVID. At some point people will stop wearing masks in the community (Neither you nor I have any control over this), and she will have to decide for herself if she chooses to enter the community unmasked, or if she will wear an N95 for the rest of her life. And, as I mentioned earlier, at the end of the day, what will happen will happen. Do you think the United States will go into a full China-style lockdown at some point to protect people who are unvaccinated after the vaccine has reached wide distribution? It's not gonna happen! It doesn't matter how either of us feels about this. It's just not gonna happen. The best plan we have for moving forward is to get as many people as we possibly can vaccinated. Based on my understanding of immunological mechanisms I believe that it is highly likely this will reduce community-transmission (you haven't convinced me to let go of my suspicion based on the evidence presented, and I think the monkey paper in fact strengthens my argument). For those that refuse to be vaccinated, or that are pathologically immunocompromised, their best bet will be increased access to N95 masks to actually filter incoming air, and the fact that they will once again have increased access to the healthcare system that they do not now have. What is your alternate proposal? Do you think the US will lock-down and mandate masks for the next 10 years, even after widespread vaccine distribution? Remember, we are not talking about science here, we are talking about policy. And despite Dr. Rifkin's faith in the angels of our better nature, and that "Our non-rational sides should inspire and inform reality, not dictate our perception of it," again, I invite you both to visit an Oklahoma WalMart and confront the fact that policy does not follow these humanitarian ideals. To quote from Ben Rhodes' memoir, "We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be."

acqq 6y ago

I'm not denying the known awesomeness of vaccines. I'm denying your currently provably false claims about the extent of their awesomeness, and I've linked to the proofs and specified exactly what you have claimed but what's provably not supported at the moment. I see you don't try anymore to claim what you initially claimed, and that's good. Your claim "you should be wearing a mask around them anyway, because they're very vulnerable to a hell of a lot more bugs that you could be toting around than just SARS-Cov-2" is also wrong. It's also provable, and was easy to read in the press for months, that many people who would otherwise live decades longer, without people around them wearing masks, already died form SARS-Cov-2. There are still many such who have tried to protect themselves in these months but who will be more exposed to those who would wrongly believe in "sterilizing immunity" of the vaccine if there is no such. So it's important to be scientifically accurate. At the current moment, all we know is that the vaccines protect the vaccinated from getting sick. We still don't know that the vaccinated can't transmit the virus to the vulnerable, and until we know that, we must say that we don't know that and protect the vulnerable! As Lawrence Rifkin MD writes, also at the moment on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25287076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25287076 "So when facing loss of innocent life in a house fire, cry openly. Allow yourself to hurt deeply. Comfort the bereaved. But don’t say “it was meant to be” or “they’re in a better place.” Go out and promote stoves with smoke-sensing, automatic shut-off valves. The fact that we have the ability, through conscious choice and action, to change the world and make it a better place is a fundamental wonder of being human. It’s what being good is. Not for the benefit of some other world, but for this, our one world; not for some supernatural being, but for our fellow beings."

phobosanomaly 6y ago
I still don't buy the evidence you've given. Sure, there's not hard clinical evidence that I can point to that demonstrates that there is zero viral shedding from vaccinated individuals. But I don't claim that. I claim that it is highly likely that it knocks down viral shedding significantly. My reading of the monkey paper you cited earlier demonstrates to me a clear mechanism for reduction in viral shedding through the lower airway, thus reducing viral transmission through respiratory droplets during vocalization! I don't think you're drawing a distinction between pathologically immunocompromised individuals, and individuals who may not have as robust an immune response as others, but who can receive a vaccine. In someone who is pathologically immunocompromised, you should 100% be wearing a mask around them normally. They are not safe if you do not because they are vulnerable to a wide number of pathogens. If they are simply elderly or at-risk, let's get them vaccinated! My mom is elderly and very vulnerable, but she is not pathologically immunocompromised. She has a reaction to flu vaccines. I will most definitely be recommending to her that she receive either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine. There may be an adverse reaction, but she'll be a hell of a lot safer than if she didn't receive the vaccine and catches COVID. At some point people will stop wearing masks in the community (Neither you nor I have any control over this), and she will have to decide for herself if she chooses to enter the community unmasked, or if she will wear an N95 for the rest of her life. And, as I mentioned earlier, at the end of the day, what will happen will happen. Do you think the United States will go into a full China-style lockdown at some point to protect people who are unvaccinated after the vaccine has reached wide distribution? It's not gonna happen! It doesn't matter how either of us feels about this. It's just not gonna happen. The best plan we have for moving forward is to get as many people as we possibly can vaccinated. Based on my understanding of immunological mechanisms I believe that it is highly likely this will reduce community-transmission (you haven't convinced me to let go of my suspicion based on the evidence presented, and I think the monkey paper in fact strengthens my argument). For those that refuse to be vaccinated, or that are pathologically immunocompromised, their best bet will be increased access to N95 masks to actually filter incoming air, and the fact that they will once again have increased access to the healthcare system that they do not now have. What is your alternate proposal? Do you think the US will lock-down and mandate masks for the next 10 years, even after widespread vaccine distribution? Remember, we are not talking about science here, we are talking about policy. And despite Dr. Rifkin's faith in the angels of our better nature, and that "Our non-rational sides should inspire and inform reality, not dictate our perception of it," again, I invite you both to visit an Oklahoma WalMart and confront the fact that policy does not follow these humanitarian ideals. To quote from Ben Rhodes' memoir, "We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be."