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I look at the vaccine vs. virus risk profile quite differently. I am in my mid-30s, with good levels of vitamin D, and I'm prepared to treat any Covid infectio

I look at the vaccine vs. virus risk profile quite differently. I am in my mid-30s, with good levels of vitamin D, and I'm prepared to treat any Covid infection I do get with a protocol including ivermectin and various vitamins which has proven effective where it has been tried in India in Mexico. I'm not going to die from it (certainly don't have a "pretty f*&^ high risk"). The long haul risk is a little bit more substantial, but having a treatment lined up reduces my risk a lot there too, and in the vast majority of cases it is not debilitating and I'm optimistic that treatment methods will be found. So the "risk of ruin" from the virus is basically nonexistent. What's my risk of ruin from the vaccines? We really have no idea because they're new and almost completely untested (in some cases this is even true of the techniques used). If there's even a 0.1% chance of the vaccine causing some sort of debilitating, significant harm, that's a far worse bargain for me than taking my chances with the virus. The chances of something like antibody dependent enhancement are essentially impossible to predict until the vaccine's interaction with the circulating virus has been observed for many more months (ideally through another winter season). It will probably take at least a couple of years of seeing the vaccine in widespread use for this risk calculus to tilt the other way for me.

donovanian 6y ago
I'm in the same boat, I'm not against vaccination either. I've taken every vaccine offered, I get the yearly flu vaccine and even went out of my way for the HPV vaccine.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Same, I and my family have all our routine shots, although we're not all that consistent about the flu.
m4rtink 6y ago
Even if you migh not have you health ruined by covid, getting infected still makes it possible for you to infect others who might not be so lucky. While vaccination apparently doesn't completely prevent you from infecting others, all studies as far as I can tell say that they reduce the risk quite substantially.
- donovanian 6y ago
  So it stands to reason that if the vaccine were effective, after the vaccine blitzkrieg that's going on now, the vulnerable should be ok.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  I don't believe I am obligated to take an experimental vaccine in order to reduce the risk that I will transmit a virus with a 99.95% survival rate for people under 70. And while I'm optimistic about the prospect for these vaccines to reduce transmission in the short run, it remains to be seen how well they will work over the long term against the evolving virus.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - astrange 6y ago
    They will work fine because this virus can't evolve for shit. It's only produced 2-3 strains and only has one external protein it can mutate. The current vaccines are still good enough against it, and it doesn't take long to edit an mRNA vaccine either. > I will transmit a virus with a 99.95% survival rate for people under 70. This math is wrong, you should think of it as getting a flu but ten times worse that also gives you a permanent heart condition. And remember that the flu is already ten times worse than you think it is, because the last thing you thought was a flu was just a cold.
    - donovanian 6y ago
      > you should think of it as getting a flu but ten times worse that also gives you a permanent heart condition Perhaps we should think of it as getting SARS-Cov-2 and as much as 1/3 of people don't even know they're infected. Unhealthy people are often really hit hard, the most vulnerable have a substantial risk of death. But an overwhelming number of healthy people are fine, and given the prolonged disruption of normal life, those people suffer vast consequences from interventions that outweigh catching the virus. Children especially are being sacrificed for the elderly and chronically ill.
renaudg 6y ago
> with good levels of vitamin D which is not proven to have any relevance to Covid-19, unfortunately. > I'm prepared to treat any Covid infection I do get with a protocol including ivermectin and various vitamins which has proven effective where it has been tried in India in Mexico. Please do not spread potentially dangerous health misinformation and false hopes, even in good faith. If there was such a protocol that worked, the world would know. Now that Hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 has been thoroughly debunked, snake oil peddlers have apparently moved on to Ivermectin. Efficacy-wise it seems to be taking the exact same path as HCQ, unfortunately. Hopefully this time around, no more precious research time and resources than strictly necessary will be wasted trying to prove again and again that the "Internet's miracle cure" does. not. work. More here : https://forbetterscience.com/2020/12/15/ivermectin-now-against-covid-19-why/ https://forbetterscience.com/2020/12/15/ivermectin-now-again... > The long haul risk is a little bit more substantial Between one in six and one in three people, to be precise. A "little bit more" indeed. > in the vast majority of cases it is not debilitating 76% of hospitalised patients still have symptoms after 6 months. https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-get-long-covid-and-who-is-most-at-risk-154331 https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-get-long-covid-a...
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  "Autumn COVID-19 surge dates in Europe correlated to latitudes, not to temperature-humidity, pointing to vitamin D as contributing factor": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w > Please do not spread potentially dangerous health misinformation and false hopes, even in good faith. If there was such a protocol that worked, the world would know. Just because you have convinced yourself that legitimate treatments for Covid could never possibly be suppressed because they are not profitable, does not mean that is actually the case. Your attempts at ideological discipline disguised as "just trying to keep the forum free of dangerous misinformation" are not going to work with me. The pattern of "HCQ didn't work, therefore Covid is untreatable and any other suggested therapies are quackery" has certainly gotten a lot of mileage since HCQ flamed out as a standalone treatment, but it is baldly anti-scientific thinking. Some other good signs of motivated, un-scientific reasoning are peppered throughout the blog post you linked (which by the way was written long before the release of numerous RCTs demonstrating ivermectin's effectiveness), such as frequent use of the term "Covidiots" or using the Surgisphere researchers (who as far as I can tell were grifters paid to discredit HCQ) to tar ivermectin because they mentioned it once. The NIH finally had to withdraw its recommendation against ivermectin in mid-January. Of course they're still maintaining the line of "there's insufficient studies to recommend its use and we're certainly not going to fund any!" but the trend is continuing in this direction and RCTs are continuing to pile up showing its effectiveness in fending off severe cases when taken early. Also, good news! HCQ has actually been shown to be effective in combination with other drugs like bromhexine which block the virus entry pathways that HCQ misses. Perhaps not as significant now that far better treatments like fluvoxamine and ivermectin are out there, but it still show that HCQ is a far cry from "snake oil." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7175911/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7175911/ > Between one in six and one in three people, to be precise. A "little bit more" indeed. Is it your serious contention that up to one in three people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 develop long haul symptoms? > 76% of hospitalised patients still have symptoms after 6 months. Yes, and in how many of those cases are those symptoms debilitating? What percentage of people infected are even hospitalized in the first place?
hellotomyrars 6y ago
I’m glad that you’ve come to the conclusion that if you did get COVID that actually you’d be fine so it doesn’t matter. You might be right. You very well could be wrong. There are plenty of people who thought they’d be fine or it didn’t even exist and a non-trivial number of them are dead now. This is a backwards argument and doesn’t stand up to basic logical scrutiny. You’re inventing the numbers and deciding based on the numbers you’ve come up with the conclusion. That’s your prerogative but let’s be clear that you’re not basing this math on anything other than your gut feelings.

donovanian 6y ago

I'm in the same boat, I'm not against vaccination either. I've taken every vaccine offered, I get the yearly flu vaccine and even went out of my way for the HPV vaccine.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
Same, I and my family have all our routine shots, although we're not all that consistent about the flu.

m4rtink 6y ago

Even if you migh not have you health ruined by covid, getting infected still makes it possible for you to infect others who might not be so lucky. While vaccination apparently doesn't completely prevent you from infecting others, all studies as far as I can tell say that they reduce the risk quite substantially.

donovanian 6y ago
So it stands to reason that if the vaccine were effective, after the vaccine blitzkrieg that's going on now, the vulnerable should be ok.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
I don't believe I am obligated to take an experimental vaccine in order to reduce the risk that I will transmit a virus with a 99.95% survival rate for people under 70. And while I'm optimistic about the prospect for these vaccines to reduce transmission in the short run, it remains to be seen how well they will work over the long term against the evolving virus.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- astrange 6y ago
  They will work fine because this virus can't evolve for shit. It's only produced 2-3 strains and only has one external protein it can mutate. The current vaccines are still good enough against it, and it doesn't take long to edit an mRNA vaccine either. > I will transmit a virus with a 99.95% survival rate for people under 70. This math is wrong, you should think of it as getting a flu but ten times worse that also gives you a permanent heart condition. And remember that the flu is already ten times worse than you think it is, because the last thing you thought was a flu was just a cold.
  - donovanian 6y ago
    > you should think of it as getting a flu but ten times worse that also gives you a permanent heart condition Perhaps we should think of it as getting SARS-Cov-2 and as much as 1/3 of people don't even know they're infected. Unhealthy people are often really hit hard, the most vulnerable have a substantial risk of death. But an overwhelming number of healthy people are fine, and given the prolonged disruption of normal life, those people suffer vast consequences from interventions that outweigh catching the virus. Children especially are being sacrificed for the elderly and chronically ill.

renaudg 6y ago

> with good levels of vitamin D which is not proven to have any relevance to Covid-19, unfortunately. > I'm prepared to treat any Covid infection I do get with a protocol including ivermectin and various vitamins which has proven effective where it has been tried in India in Mexico. Please do not spread potentially dangerous health misinformation and false hopes, even in good faith. If there was such a protocol that worked, the world would know. Now that Hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 has been thoroughly debunked, snake oil peddlers have apparently moved on to Ivermectin. Efficacy-wise it seems to be taking the exact same path as HCQ, unfortunately. Hopefully this time around, no more precious research time and resources than strictly necessary will be wasted trying to prove again and again that the "Internet's miracle cure" does. not. work. More here : https://forbetterscience.com/2020/12/15/ivermectin-now-against-covid-19-why/ https://forbetterscience.com/2020/12/15/ivermectin-now-again... > The long haul risk is a little bit more substantial Between one in six and one in three people, to be precise. A "little bit more" indeed. > in the vast majority of cases it is not debilitating 76% of hospitalised patients still have symptoms after 6 months. https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-get-long-covid-and-who-is-most-at-risk-154331 https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-get-long-covid-a...

AndrewBissell 6y ago
"Autumn COVID-19 surge dates in Europe correlated to latitudes, not to temperature-humidity, pointing to vitamin D as contributing factor": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w > Please do not spread potentially dangerous health misinformation and false hopes, even in good faith. If there was such a protocol that worked, the world would know. Just because you have convinced yourself that legitimate treatments for Covid could never possibly be suppressed because they are not profitable, does not mean that is actually the case. Your attempts at ideological discipline disguised as "just trying to keep the forum free of dangerous misinformation" are not going to work with me. The pattern of "HCQ didn't work, therefore Covid is untreatable and any other suggested therapies are quackery" has certainly gotten a lot of mileage since HCQ flamed out as a standalone treatment, but it is baldly anti-scientific thinking. Some other good signs of motivated, un-scientific reasoning are peppered throughout the blog post you linked (which by the way was written long before the release of numerous RCTs demonstrating ivermectin's effectiveness), such as frequent use of the term "Covidiots" or using the Surgisphere researchers (who as far as I can tell were grifters paid to discredit HCQ) to tar ivermectin because they mentioned it once. The NIH finally had to withdraw its recommendation against ivermectin in mid-January. Of course they're still maintaining the line of "there's insufficient studies to recommend its use and we're certainly not going to fund any!" but the trend is continuing in this direction and RCTs are continuing to pile up showing its effectiveness in fending off severe cases when taken early. Also, good news! HCQ has actually been shown to be effective in combination with other drugs like bromhexine which block the virus entry pathways that HCQ misses. Perhaps not as significant now that far better treatments like fluvoxamine and ivermectin are out there, but it still show that HCQ is a far cry from "snake oil." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7175911/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7175911/ > Between one in six and one in three people, to be precise. A "little bit more" indeed. Is it your serious contention that up to one in three people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 develop long haul symptoms? > 76% of hospitalised patients still have symptoms after 6 months. Yes, and in how many of those cases are those symptoms debilitating? What percentage of people infected are even hospitalized in the first place?

hellotomyrars 6y ago

I’m glad that you’ve come to the conclusion that if you did get COVID that actually you’d be fine so it doesn’t matter. You might be right. You very well could be wrong. There are plenty of people who thought they’d be fine or it didn’t even exist and a non-trivial number of them are dead now. This is a backwards argument and doesn’t stand up to basic logical scrutiny. You’re inventing the numbers and deciding based on the numbers you’ve come up with the conclusion. That’s your prerogative but let’s be clear that you’re not basing this math on anything other than your gut feelings.