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Correct. I meant the mRNA vaccines. The AZ & J&J vaccines don't have that same concern, but I'd still worry about an untested vaccine. There is really no good r

Correct. I meant the mRNA vaccines. The AZ & J&J vaccines don't have that same concern, but I'd still worry about an untested vaccine. There is really no good reason for the young and healthy to get the vaccine yet or any time soon.

gnfargbl 5y ago
At the moment we're shitting on the younger generation even harder than usual, by denying them the opportunity to go out, meet people and generally enjoy their youth. Doing that for a year was maybe justified, but it is just totally unfair to carry on for an extended period. To open up again we need to bring the demand on healthcare services down and we need to do it sustainably, i.e. in a way which prevents another exponential spike. If we can achieve that aim without mass vaccination of healthy young people then great, of course, let's do that. But: if the only way to squash this thing and return everyone to a somewhat normal life turns out to be to keep vaccinating until we get right down to the twenty year olds, shouldn't we do so -- for their sake as much as everyone else's?
- throwaway8581 5y ago
  False dichotomy. If the 20 year olds all get covid, almost nothing bad will happen. So just let them catch it. If the at-risk people are all vaccinated, then it's not a big deal.
  - fastball 5y ago
    > If the 20 year olds all get covid, almost nothing bad will happen. How exactly are you so confident about the long-tail risks of contracting COVID-19? Sounds like epistemic arrogance to me.
    - throwaway8581 5y ago
      Very true! But that is no different than flu and cold mutations year to year. The only reason we are worried about covid is the high death rate for some populations. Otherwise, we would not have done any lock downs or mask mandates. Continuous mutation of common viruses is the background risk that human beings have evolved over three billion years to withstand as a species. That is different than a completely novel man-made intervention.
      - allturtles 5y ago
        This sounds like special pleading to me. We have two new possible things that could be introduced to your body - a vaccine or the virus. In neither case is it possible to know what hidden long-term effects they could have on you. But the virus is known to kill and maim people in the short-term at a much higher rate than the vaccine, which is known to protect you from the virus.
        throwaway8581 5y ago
        I don't think it's a special pleading. Covid is a nasty coronavirus but it is ultimately an incremental change in a very widespread kind of virus that humans have coexisted with forever. Human beings have evolved to survive this kind of thing as a species. This is the kind of risk that a species has to be equipped to survive to have made it this far. Which is not to say that a virus can't come around and wipe us all out, but it would be a truly extraordinary event. For all we know, mRNA vaccines can alter your gametes. We don't know because this is the first time we ever use them. They aren't like viruses or weakened viruses. They are just a massive injection of genetic material (much of it deformed) that encodes a single foreign protein. No human being has ever had such a thing done to them until very recently. mRNA vaccines are not part of any natural process that modern humans or our ancestors have had to withstand to get to the present day.
        allturtles 5y ago
        Viruses are like super mRNA vaccines. They commandeer your cells not to just create a single protein, but to create a bunch of proteins in order to form new viruses. And unlike mRNA, they reproduce and can stay in your body for months or years. I don't see the huge new risk. I don't know why you have this special concern about the gametes. In any case, if there's a significant bump in miscarriages / infertility from the vaccine, we'll probably know very soon, now that lots of younger people are being vaccinated.
        throwaway8581 5y ago
        I have special concern about gametes because it’s one thing to risk the health of currently living people, but it’s another to risk the gene pool going forward into eternity.
  - blake1 5y ago
    Almost nothing bad will happen—with the current variants. Uncontrolled spread in a sub population will almost certainly lead to new variants emerging. Given the reduced effectiveness of current vaccines against certain variants, this is reckless.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    > almost nothing bad will happen If we pick the 25-29 year olds and an estimated infection fatality rate of 0.01% [1] it's still 13.5M x 0.01% = 1,350 deaths. It's not a lot by any means, but it's not 'almost nothing' either. This is the worst case scenario of cause, sibling comment has already mentioned long Covid, where we don't know prevalence precisely. I'm aware I've picked the 'worse half' of the 20 year olds, 20-24 will fare better obviously. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2
- kaitai 5y ago
  In my neck of the woods, kids are in school and going to wrestling tournaments and before that hockey tournaments that got to be superspreader events. We're certainly not denying kids sports where I am, or the opportunity to infect their older family members (yay!).

gnfargbl 5y ago

At the moment we're shitting on the younger generation even harder than usual, by denying them the opportunity to go out, meet people and generally enjoy their youth. Doing that for a year was maybe justified, but it is just totally unfair to carry on for an extended period. To open up again we need to bring the demand on healthcare services down and we need to do it sustainably, i.e. in a way which prevents another exponential spike. If we can achieve that aim without mass vaccination of healthy young people then great, of course, let's do that. But: if the only way to squash this thing and return everyone to a somewhat normal life turns out to be to keep vaccinating until we get right down to the twenty year olds, shouldn't we do so -- for their sake as much as everyone else's?

throwaway8581 5y ago
False dichotomy. If the 20 year olds all get covid, almost nothing bad will happen. So just let them catch it. If the at-risk people are all vaccinated, then it's not a big deal.
- fastball 5y ago
  > If the 20 year olds all get covid, almost nothing bad will happen. How exactly are you so confident about the long-tail risks of contracting COVID-19? Sounds like epistemic arrogance to me.
  - throwaway8581 5y ago
    Very true! But that is no different than flu and cold mutations year to year. The only reason we are worried about covid is the high death rate for some populations. Otherwise, we would not have done any lock downs or mask mandates. Continuous mutation of common viruses is the background risk that human beings have evolved over three billion years to withstand as a species. That is different than a completely novel man-made intervention.
    - allturtles 5y ago
      This sounds like special pleading to me. We have two new possible things that could be introduced to your body - a vaccine or the virus. In neither case is it possible to know what hidden long-term effects they could have on you. But the virus is known to kill and maim people in the short-term at a much higher rate than the vaccine, which is known to protect you from the virus.
      - throwaway8581 5y ago
        I don't think it's a special pleading. Covid is a nasty coronavirus but it is ultimately an incremental change in a very widespread kind of virus that humans have coexisted with forever. Human beings have evolved to survive this kind of thing as a species. This is the kind of risk that a species has to be equipped to survive to have made it this far. Which is not to say that a virus can't come around and wipe us all out, but it would be a truly extraordinary event. For all we know, mRNA vaccines can alter your gametes. We don't know because this is the first time we ever use them. They aren't like viruses or weakened viruses. They are just a massive injection of genetic material (much of it deformed) that encodes a single foreign protein. No human being has ever had such a thing done to them until very recently. mRNA vaccines are not part of any natural process that modern humans or our ancestors have had to withstand to get to the present day.
        allturtles 5y ago
        Viruses are like super mRNA vaccines. They commandeer your cells not to just create a single protein, but to create a bunch of proteins in order to form new viruses. And unlike mRNA, they reproduce and can stay in your body for months or years. I don't see the huge new risk. I don't know why you have this special concern about the gametes. In any case, if there's a significant bump in miscarriages / infertility from the vaccine, we'll probably know very soon, now that lots of younger people are being vaccinated.
        throwaway8581 5y ago
        I have special concern about gametes because it’s one thing to risk the health of currently living people, but it’s another to risk the gene pool going forward into eternity.
- blake1 5y ago
  Almost nothing bad will happen—with the current variants. Uncontrolled spread in a sub population will almost certainly lead to new variants emerging. Given the reduced effectiveness of current vaccines against certain variants, this is reckless.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  > almost nothing bad will happen If we pick the 25-29 year olds and an estimated infection fatality rate of 0.01% [1] it's still 13.5M x 0.01% = 1,350 deaths. It's not a lot by any means, but it's not 'almost nothing' either. This is the worst case scenario of cause, sibling comment has already mentioned long Covid, where we don't know prevalence precisely. I'm aware I've picked the 'worse half' of the 20 year olds, 20-24 will fare better obviously. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2
kaitai 5y ago
In my neck of the woods, kids are in school and going to wrestling tournaments and before that hockey tournaments that got to be superspreader events. We're certainly not denying kids sports where I am, or the opportunity to infect their older family members (yay!).