9 ms·

For AstraZeneca and not J&J, but these slides from the University of Cambridge do a better job of communicating the balance of risks than I possibly could: http

For AstraZeneca and not J&J, but these slides from the University of Cambridge do a better job of communicating the balance of risks than I possibly could: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/976877/CovidStats_07-04-21-final.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

fastball 6y ago
Yeah, the problem though is that we have a Tragedy of the Commons situation on our hands. There is a non-negligible portion of the population that wants to have its cake and eat it too – reduce the risk that they will suffer health consequences from COVID-19 by letting everyone else get the vaccine, but not getting the vax themselves, therefore putting their risk from vax at zero.
- josephcsible 6y ago
  That seems like it'd be easy to fix: the government just needs to say "as soon as you're fully vaccinated, you don't need to social distance or wear a mask in public anymore". Since that isn't their position, there's basically zero incentive for young, healthy people to risk the vaccine side effects.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    That is one option. Which is why so many anti-vac people have jumped on the no vaccine passport bandwagon. If there is no way to prove you have been vaccinated, then they can lie about it and take part in non-masked public activity (I'm not sure why they are against the mask). There are other options. Give everyone who has got the vaccine some money is one I've heard more than once. Maybe someone else has a different idea.
    - Invictus0 6y ago
      Krispy Kreme gave vaccinated people free donuts and it led to an anti-vax outrage here in the States.
  - throwaway8581 6y ago
    Young people shouldn't be getting the vaccine period. There is no reason to give every single person who will have children in the future an experimental vaccine for a virus they are at no serious risk from. The long tail risk on that is absolutely insane.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Not exactly sure what procreation has to do with anything. Also pretty sure risk of death outweighs literally any possible long-tail risk, so still seems sensible for the young to get the vax. Also don't think the long-tail risk of an mRNA vaccine can be worse then COVID's long-tail risk.
      - throwaway8581 6y ago
        We have never deployed an mRNA vaccine before. We don't know what effect it might have on gametes.
        fastball 6y ago
        Yes we do? The mRNA vaccines cause your body to produce the coronavirus spike protein. That is the beauty of an mRNA vaccine – the cure literally cannot be worse than the disease, because the cure is just a subset of the disease. Anything these mRNA vaccines do to your gametes would also be done (and worse) by COVID-19 itself, so... definitely get vaxxed with an mRNA vaccine if you're worried about long-tail risk. Also this is the J&J vaccine which is viral vector, not mRNA (Moderna/Pfizer).
        throwaway8581 6y ago
        We don't know that it has no other effect. We don't know all of the circumstances where reverse transcription can happen in the human body. This kind of epistemic arrogance is dangerous and is how we ended up with thalidomide causing mass birth defects and other such disasters.
  - mzs 6y ago
    That runs contrary to good public health policy for C19 where even the fully vaccinated should follow many precautions such as masking in public and limiting number of households in close contact.
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      If you believe good public health policy requires that there be restrictions on gatherings even where everyone is fully vaccinated, then what do you see as the path back to full normality? Or is this just how humanity has to live forever now?
      - mzs 6y ago
        Only 22.7% of US pop is fully vaccinated as of 0600 ET today. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations When that reaches +80% the recommendations will ease more but as of now: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...
        josephcsible 6y ago
        Why does it matter how much of the US is vaccinated? For any given gathering, doesn't it only matter whether the people at that gathering are? Suppose 20,000 people, each from different households, all met at Madison Square Garden, and that they're all vaccinated. Why would that be more dangerous if nobody else in the world was vaccinated vs. if everybody else in the world was?
        mzs 6y ago
        Look if both households are low risk and everyone has been vaccinated go ahead and meet under one roof without any masks and hug - that's fine under current recommendations. It's even looser than that, like if you unvaccinated low risk children visiting vaccinated grandparents ad so on. Right now across US being fully vaccinated is only 80% effective against infection. When you have 20k vaxed folks meet when the virus is endemic in the pop, some of those vaxed folks will be infected and some will catch it there. When more folks are vaxed there will be less of the virus circulating and then that calculation then changes. It's all about how prevalent the virus is in the community to begin with assuming no strains appear that dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the vax. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/13/986411423/a-mystery-under-study-how-why-and-when-covid-vaccines-arent-fully-protective https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/13/9864114...
- mzs 6y ago
  or just run PF4 for everyone concerned after adenovirus vector vaccinations
- Vinnl 6y ago
  I think part of the thing that makes this more difficult is that some people already have practically no risk of suffering health consequences from COVID-19, and possibly (but also possibly not) do risk suffering health consequences from the vaccination.
  - fastball 6y ago
    This is not really true, as demonstrated by the PDF linked in the GC.
    - ryankemper 6y ago
      It is true; the PDF linked in the GC has to make a number of assumptions and is very obviously made from a point of bias (which does not invalidate its claims but warrants extra scrutiny). Also it's comparing raw ICU admissions, but there are a number of really nasty adverse reactions that don't throw you in the ICU. The general "second shot syndrome" that something like half of people getting Pfizer/Moderna experience is a great example of that. Yeah it's not bad enough to send them to the ICU, but for many people COVID-19 would be literally asymptomatic or would be minimally symptomatic, whereas the second shot syndrome can be quite brutal.
      - fastball 6y ago
        Why do you assume that people who are getting second shot syndrome would be the same people who would have asymptomatic COVID-19? That seems... far-fetched at best.
        ryankemper 6y ago
        Second shot syndrome is apparently worse in the young (20's / 30's) due to the stronger immune response. I wasn't assuming that everyone who gets the syndrome would be asymp. but just that many would.
      - gnfargbl 6y ago
        > is very obviously made from a point of bias Why do you believe that? It seems to me that the reputational damage caused by the U of C centre putting out bad slides is going to be stronger than any benefit they might get from being "seen to be a team player" or similar. Skepticism is always good but in this particular case, I do trust that evidence. > there are a number of really nasty adverse reactions that don't throw you in the ICU OK, but you can make the same argument for COVID. It seems to me that the slides are at least comparing apples with apples.
- jopsen 6y ago
  (A) vaccination means less social distancing sooner. Lots of people are interested that. (B) covid-19 might very well become endemic. Like how the common cold is always around. It's not so bad if we're vaccinated. But for those that don't get vaccinated hurd immunity might not cover them. In practice: I think we just need to be honest about the risk of vaccines. And say that taking it is the patriotic thing to do :)
  - kmlx 6y ago
    > vaccination means less social distancing sooner. i guess you can put it like that. from my understanding the vaccines do reduce the transmissibility of the virus, but they do not lower it to zero [0]. you can still get the virus, but with the vaccine your chances of needing hospitalisation drop to zero [1]. i guess this is why you still need to wear a mask, and still need to socially distance even if you are vaccinated [2]. [0] https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/covid-19-vaccine-linked-reduction-transmission https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/covid-19-vaccin... [1] https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-confirms-protection-against-severe-disease-hospitalisation-and-death-in-the-primary-analysis-of-phase-iii-trials.html# https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...! [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
    - jopsen 6y ago
      > from my understanding the vaccines do reduce the transmissibility of the virus Yeah, but once vaccinated you can start to worry less. And surely we'll see things open up to those who are vaccinated. The fact that it's possibly still transmissible by vaccinated people is probably the reason why we all need to get vaccinated, and there is no hurd immunity to be gained :/
    - fastball 6y ago
      No vaccine ever reduces transmissibility to zero. Vaccines prime your immune system to fight off the invader as quickly as possible, but they are not a magic shield that prevents the invader from ever entering your system. And if it is in your system, it is of course possible to transmit it.

fastball 6y ago

Yeah, the problem though is that we have a Tragedy of the Commons situation on our hands. There is a non-negligible portion of the population that wants to have its cake and eat it too – reduce the risk that they will suffer health consequences from COVID-19 by letting everyone else get the vaccine, but not getting the vax themselves, therefore putting their risk from vax at zero.

josephcsible 6y ago
That seems like it'd be easy to fix: the government just needs to say "as soon as you're fully vaccinated, you don't need to social distance or wear a mask in public anymore". Since that isn't their position, there's basically zero incentive for young, healthy people to risk the vaccine side effects.
- bluGill 6y ago
  That is one option. Which is why so many anti-vac people have jumped on the no vaccine passport bandwagon. If there is no way to prove you have been vaccinated, then they can lie about it and take part in non-masked public activity (I'm not sure why they are against the mask). There are other options. Give everyone who has got the vaccine some money is one I've heard more than once. Maybe someone else has a different idea.
  - Invictus0 6y ago
    Krispy Kreme gave vaccinated people free donuts and it led to an anti-vax outrage here in the States.
- throwaway8581 6y ago
  Young people shouldn't be getting the vaccine period. There is no reason to give every single person who will have children in the future an experimental vaccine for a virus they are at no serious risk from. The long tail risk on that is absolutely insane.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Not exactly sure what procreation has to do with anything. Also pretty sure risk of death outweighs literally any possible long-tail risk, so still seems sensible for the young to get the vax. Also don't think the long-tail risk of an mRNA vaccine can be worse then COVID's long-tail risk.
    - throwaway8581 6y ago
      We have never deployed an mRNA vaccine before. We don't know what effect it might have on gametes.
      - fastball 6y ago
        Yes we do? The mRNA vaccines cause your body to produce the coronavirus spike protein. That is the beauty of an mRNA vaccine – the cure literally cannot be worse than the disease, because the cure is just a subset of the disease. Anything these mRNA vaccines do to your gametes would also be done (and worse) by COVID-19 itself, so... definitely get vaxxed with an mRNA vaccine if you're worried about long-tail risk. Also this is the J&J vaccine which is viral vector, not mRNA (Moderna/Pfizer).
        throwaway8581 6y ago
        We don't know that it has no other effect. We don't know all of the circumstances where reverse transcription can happen in the human body. This kind of epistemic arrogance is dangerous and is how we ended up with thalidomide causing mass birth defects and other such disasters.
- mzs 6y ago
  That runs contrary to good public health policy for C19 where even the fully vaccinated should follow many precautions such as masking in public and limiting number of households in close contact.
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    If you believe good public health policy requires that there be restrictions on gatherings even where everyone is fully vaccinated, then what do you see as the path back to full normality? Or is this just how humanity has to live forever now?
    - mzs 6y ago
      Only 22.7% of US pop is fully vaccinated as of 0600 ET today. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations When that reaches +80% the recommendations will ease more but as of now: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...
      - josephcsible 6y ago
        Why does it matter how much of the US is vaccinated? For any given gathering, doesn't it only matter whether the people at that gathering are? Suppose 20,000 people, each from different households, all met at Madison Square Garden, and that they're all vaccinated. Why would that be more dangerous if nobody else in the world was vaccinated vs. if everybody else in the world was?
        mzs 6y ago
        Look if both households are low risk and everyone has been vaccinated go ahead and meet under one roof without any masks and hug - that's fine under current recommendations. It's even looser than that, like if you unvaccinated low risk children visiting vaccinated grandparents ad so on. Right now across US being fully vaccinated is only 80% effective against infection. When you have 20k vaxed folks meet when the virus is endemic in the pop, some of those vaxed folks will be infected and some will catch it there. When more folks are vaxed there will be less of the virus circulating and then that calculation then changes. It's all about how prevalent the virus is in the community to begin with assuming no strains appear that dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the vax. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/13/986411423/a-mystery-under-study-how-why-and-when-covid-vaccines-arent-fully-protective https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/13/9864114...
mzs 6y ago
or just run PF4 for everyone concerned after adenovirus vector vaccinations
Vinnl 6y ago
I think part of the thing that makes this more difficult is that some people already have practically no risk of suffering health consequences from COVID-19, and possibly (but also possibly not) do risk suffering health consequences from the vaccination.
- fastball 6y ago
  This is not really true, as demonstrated by the PDF linked in the GC.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    It is true; the PDF linked in the GC has to make a number of assumptions and is very obviously made from a point of bias (which does not invalidate its claims but warrants extra scrutiny). Also it's comparing raw ICU admissions, but there are a number of really nasty adverse reactions that don't throw you in the ICU. The general "second shot syndrome" that something like half of people getting Pfizer/Moderna experience is a great example of that. Yeah it's not bad enough to send them to the ICU, but for many people COVID-19 would be literally asymptomatic or would be minimally symptomatic, whereas the second shot syndrome can be quite brutal.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Why do you assume that people who are getting second shot syndrome would be the same people who would have asymptomatic COVID-19? That seems... far-fetched at best.
      - ryankemper 6y ago
        Second shot syndrome is apparently worse in the young (20's / 30's) due to the stronger immune response. I wasn't assuming that everyone who gets the syndrome would be asymp. but just that many would.
    - gnfargbl 6y ago
      > is very obviously made from a point of bias Why do you believe that? It seems to me that the reputational damage caused by the U of C centre putting out bad slides is going to be stronger than any benefit they might get from being "seen to be a team player" or similar. Skepticism is always good but in this particular case, I do trust that evidence. > there are a number of really nasty adverse reactions that don't throw you in the ICU OK, but you can make the same argument for COVID. It seems to me that the slides are at least comparing apples with apples.
jopsen 6y ago
(A) vaccination means less social distancing sooner. Lots of people are interested that. (B) covid-19 might very well become endemic. Like how the common cold is always around. It's not so bad if we're vaccinated. But for those that don't get vaccinated hurd immunity might not cover them. In practice: I think we just need to be honest about the risk of vaccines. And say that taking it is the patriotic thing to do :)
- kmlx 6y ago
  > vaccination means less social distancing sooner. i guess you can put it like that. from my understanding the vaccines do reduce the transmissibility of the virus, but they do not lower it to zero [0]. you can still get the virus, but with the vaccine your chances of needing hospitalisation drop to zero [1]. i guess this is why you still need to wear a mask, and still need to socially distance even if you are vaccinated [2]. [0] https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/covid-19-vaccine-linked-reduction-transmission https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/covid-19-vaccin... [1] https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-confirms-protection-against-severe-disease-hospitalisation-and-death-in-the-primary-analysis-of-phase-iii-trials.html# https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...! [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
  - jopsen 6y ago
    > from my understanding the vaccines do reduce the transmissibility of the virus Yeah, but once vaccinated you can start to worry less. And surely we'll see things open up to those who are vaccinated. The fact that it's possibly still transmissible by vaccinated people is probably the reason why we all need to get vaccinated, and there is no hurd immunity to be gained :/
  - fastball 6y ago
    No vaccine ever reduces transmissibility to zero. Vaccines prime your immune system to fight off the invader as quickly as possible, but they are not a magic shield that prevents the invader from ever entering your system. And if it is in your system, it is of course possible to transmit it.