10 ms·

Excellent news. The unfortunate thing is the level of ignorance today mistakes a very careful effort make sure the vaccine is safe with a wanton ignoring of so

Excellent news. The unfortunate thing is the level of ignorance today mistakes a very careful effort make sure the vaccine is safe with a wanton ignoring of some danger. Beyond talking about the fact that they determined this was safe, at some point educating people on danger in statistical terms is going to be necessary. But I'm not sure how that happens - addiction to headline-logic and single-heart-pulling-events is a huge part of the news industry.

andrew_v4 6y ago
I think it's a direct consequence of media and government trying to remove free will from the equation and present taking the vaccine as the only choice people have. If you're going to essentially force people to do it, a statistically meaningless side-effect becomes more important as reason for people to push back (and the media to drum up false fears). If you treat people like adults and let them consult their doctors and make their own decisions, the bar is much lower for safety (by lower I mean from impossibly high to reasonable). People willingly take much more risky medicines and treatments all the time and are fine with it. But if you try and force something in them, it's not surprising they push back on anything that isn't guaranteed to be perfect. (So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns lower if you just made it available and let people make their own choice. But the whole pandemic has been more about forcing people to do things than about trying to do things that actually solve the problem) [Edit- it's funny how any presence of giving people control over their bodies evaporates in a situation like this. And re the strawman that "nobody is forcing you" - if the consequence is severe limits on what you are allowed to do, that doesnt really hold up]
- jdavis703 6y ago
  No one is being forced to take vaccines. It’s already announced there will be no federal vaccine passport, and many states are banning passports.
  - option 6y ago
    at least here, in California, you can not chose which one you get when making the appointment or when arriving at the vaccination site. Also CSU and UC will require vaccinations for return to on-campus. (Though I'm not sure that they will be able to do so until vaccines are under "emergency use" authorization, not a regular one)
    - void_mint 6y ago
      It's true that you can't choose, but lots of places are listing what vaccines they're doing on specific days. You can "choose" by booking an appointment at a location that has the one you want, or by avoiding locations that have ones you don't want. As an example, I booked my appointment specifically at a location that only carried Pfizer.
      - option 6y ago
        yeah, when I went (and got Moderna), I saw many people (who booked the appointment) asking staff "Is it Pfizer" and leaving when the answer was No.
        void_mint 6y ago
        My personal take was just to avoid J&J in favor of mRNA vaccines, but only because of my vague obsessive anxiety.
        halfjoking 6y ago
        I have the opposite take. It seems it would be harder for the government to insert a "biological backdoor" into a viral vector vaccine than something that runs any RNA code as long as it's encoded in a special lipid delivery system (according to my limited understanding). 1 in 250k chance of blood clots is nothing... at least compared to the anxiety of the government having a switch in my biology that could melt my brain at anytime.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns lower if you just made it available and let people make their own choice. That's already how it works, though. Everyone is free to decide for themselves whether or not they'd like to be vaccinated.
  - ibejoeb 6y ago
    To an extent. Presently, you won't be thrown in jail if you don't get it. But you can't go to NYU. You can't go to a wedding. You can't go to a concert, or a football game, you can't fly Qantas...
    - histriosum 6y ago
      Yes. You are free to make a choice, not free from the consequences of that choice.
      - kosievdmerwe 6y ago
        This is a meaningless statement. It pretty much makes the idea of "coercion" impossible. "The mugger didn't force you give him your money. You could have chosen to say no. You being killed is just you not being free of the consequences of your choice". Imposing consequences on people is coercing them to make the choice you want them to. None of the consequences mentioned are natural consequences, like getting sick from the disease, but additional consequences someone decided on.
        arcticfox 6y ago
        IMO the position that someone should be free from all consequences is the meaningless idea. Someone not taking the vaccine is imposing consequences on everyone else around them and society at large, raising the risk of immune-escape variants, raising transmission risk to people that can't take it for medical reasons, raising the risk even for vaccine-protected people by defeating herd immunity (J&J gives 72% protection, so you're running a fair risk if the rest of society isn't vaccinated.) The consequences you complain of are pretty much just pricing in those externalities to the decision.
jonplackett 6y ago
I made a website recently to try and do what I think you're talking about. http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com The idea is to compare the risk of death from the AZ vaccine from blood clots (1 in a million so far) with the risks we take all the time without worrying. For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. The point is to show the fallacy of comparing the risk of the vaccine with a perceived current zero risk - you are not at zero risk ever, there's a base-risk we as society and individuals have decided we are OK with, because without it we can't even get out of bed in the morning, let alone get into a car or do anything else interesting, and the risk from these vaccines is a lot lower than that.
- alderz 6y ago
  I am not sure why you got downvoted. The website makes the point well.
- eloff 6y ago
  I fully agree, and made this point many times to my vaccine skeptical parents. Thankfully they've come around and got the vaccine since.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  The most important comparison is the risk of getting severe covid and/or dying from it if unvaccinated. It's tricky cause it depends on what you do (you get to do more once you are vaccinated), as well as the ever-changing rate of infection in the community where you are (which will change as more people get vaccinated among other things). But in general, your risk of having severe complications from covid if unvaccinated is far more than your risk of complications from the vaccine. And on the population level, we can say if say 1 million people get the vaccine, X will have blood clot complications (about 1)... if 1 million people go two months without being vaccinated, how many will get covid and have severe complications? (more than X). So if using the J&J gets a million people vaccinated two months earlier, it's a win. Of course, ALL of this is an embaressment of riches when the USA has access to large quantities of three effective and safe vaccines, when much of the planet still has zero.
zamalek 6y ago
Medications (not necessarily vaccines) are universally risky, even a Tylenol. Doctors weight the risk of you dying or suffering from symptoms against the risks involved with taking the medication. Chemotherapy is a good example: the risks and side effects are horrific, but on the other hand it's dealing with cancer. > Beyond talking about the fact that they determined this was safe And so there is a miniscule risk associated with J&J - that is the truth, or the half-truth. The whole truth is that your odds of catching and dying from COVID-19 are significantly higher than an adverse reaction to the J&J vaccine. So, even with the blot clot risk (which can be caught/treated), you should absolutely have the J&J vaccine if you have the chance to.

andrew_v4 6y ago

I think it's a direct consequence of media and government trying to remove free will from the equation and present taking the vaccine as the only choice people have. If you're going to essentially force people to do it, a statistically meaningless side-effect becomes more important as reason for people to push back (and the media to drum up false fears). If you treat people like adults and let them consult their doctors and make their own decisions, the bar is much lower for safety (by lower I mean from impossibly high to reasonable). People willingly take much more risky medicines and treatments all the time and are fine with it. But if you try and force something in them, it's not surprising they push back on anything that isn't guaranteed to be perfect. (So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns lower if you just made it available and let people make their own choice. But the whole pandemic has been more about forcing people to do things than about trying to do things that actually solve the problem) [Edit- it's funny how any presence of giving people control over their bodies evaporates in a situation like this. And re the strawman that "nobody is forcing you" - if the consequence is severe limits on what you are allowed to do, that doesnt really hold up]

jdavis703 6y ago
No one is being forced to take vaccines. It’s already announced there will be no federal vaccine passport, and many states are banning passports.
- option 6y ago
  at least here, in California, you can not chose which one you get when making the appointment or when arriving at the vaccination site. Also CSU and UC will require vaccinations for return to on-campus. (Though I'm not sure that they will be able to do so until vaccines are under "emergency use" authorization, not a regular one)
  - void_mint 6y ago
    It's true that you can't choose, but lots of places are listing what vaccines they're doing on specific days. You can "choose" by booking an appointment at a location that has the one you want, or by avoiding locations that have ones you don't want. As an example, I booked my appointment specifically at a location that only carried Pfizer.
    - option 6y ago
      yeah, when I went (and got Moderna), I saw many people (who booked the appointment) asking staff "Is it Pfizer" and leaving when the answer was No.
      - void_mint 6y ago
        My personal take was just to avoid J&J in favor of mRNA vaccines, but only because of my vague obsessive anxiety.
        halfjoking 6y ago
        I have the opposite take. It seems it would be harder for the government to insert a "biological backdoor" into a viral vector vaccine than something that runs any RNA code as long as it's encoded in a special lipid delivery system (according to my limited understanding). 1 in 250k chance of blood clots is nothing... at least compared to the anxiety of the government having a switch in my biology that could melt my brain at anytime.
elliekelly 6y ago
> So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns lower if you just made it available and let people make their own choice. That's already how it works, though. Everyone is free to decide for themselves whether or not they'd like to be vaccinated.
- ibejoeb 6y ago
  To an extent. Presently, you won't be thrown in jail if you don't get it. But you can't go to NYU. You can't go to a wedding. You can't go to a concert, or a football game, you can't fly Qantas...
  - histriosum 6y ago
    Yes. You are free to make a choice, not free from the consequences of that choice.
    - kosievdmerwe 6y ago
      This is a meaningless statement. It pretty much makes the idea of "coercion" impossible. "The mugger didn't force you give him your money. You could have chosen to say no. You being killed is just you not being free of the consequences of your choice". Imposing consequences on people is coercing them to make the choice you want them to. None of the consequences mentioned are natural consequences, like getting sick from the disease, but additional consequences someone decided on.
      - arcticfox 6y ago
        IMO the position that someone should be free from all consequences is the meaningless idea. Someone not taking the vaccine is imposing consequences on everyone else around them and society at large, raising the risk of immune-escape variants, raising transmission risk to people that can't take it for medical reasons, raising the risk even for vaccine-protected people by defeating herd immunity (J&J gives 72% protection, so you're running a fair risk if the rest of society isn't vaccinated.) The consequences you complain of are pretty much just pricing in those externalities to the decision.

jonplackett 6y ago

I made a website recently to try and do what I think you're talking about. http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com The idea is to compare the risk of death from the AZ vaccine from blood clots (1 in a million so far) with the risks we take all the time without worrying. For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. The point is to show the fallacy of comparing the risk of the vaccine with a perceived current zero risk - you are not at zero risk ever, there's a base-risk we as society and individuals have decided we are OK with, because without it we can't even get out of bed in the morning, let alone get into a car or do anything else interesting, and the risk from these vaccines is a lot lower than that.

alderz 6y ago
I am not sure why you got downvoted. The website makes the point well.
eloff 6y ago
I fully agree, and made this point many times to my vaccine skeptical parents. Thankfully they've come around and got the vaccine since.
jrochkind1 6y ago
The most important comparison is the risk of getting severe covid and/or dying from it if unvaccinated. It's tricky cause it depends on what you do (you get to do more once you are vaccinated), as well as the ever-changing rate of infection in the community where you are (which will change as more people get vaccinated among other things). But in general, your risk of having severe complications from covid if unvaccinated is far more than your risk of complications from the vaccine. And on the population level, we can say if say 1 million people get the vaccine, X will have blood clot complications (about 1)... if 1 million people go two months without being vaccinated, how many will get covid and have severe complications? (more than X). So if using the J&J gets a million people vaccinated two months earlier, it's a win. Of course, ALL of this is an embaressment of riches when the USA has access to large quantities of three effective and safe vaccines, when much of the planet still has zero.

zamalek 6y ago

Medications (not necessarily vaccines) are universally risky, even a Tylenol. Doctors weight the risk of you dying or suffering from symptoms against the risks involved with taking the medication. Chemotherapy is a good example: the risks and side effects are horrific, but on the other hand it's dealing with cancer. > Beyond talking about the fact that they determined this was safe And so there is a miniscule risk associated with J&J - that is the truth, or the half-truth. The whole truth is that your odds of catching and dying from COVID-19 are significantly higher than an adverse reaction to the J&J vaccine. So, even with the blot clot risk (which can be caught/treated), you should absolutely have the J&J vaccine if you have the chance to.