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This is good. Now states are combating such hesitancy by drawing lottery for vaccinated folks. Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that p

This is good. Now states are combating such hesitancy by drawing lottery for vaccinated folks. Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death *isn't* already the lottery win of our lifetime?? People in India and elsewhere are dying because of lack of vaccines and here we have educated, first world countries struggle to get their citizens vaccinated. Unfortunately shaming such people will only push them further into antivax territory.

swader999 5y ago
Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.
- azinman2 5y ago
  It's already been the case that various countries require certain vaccines to enter, or other health clearances. These kinds of standards and even more exceptional for animals, and ultra protective for plants. Why is this any different? Why wouldn't you want someone protected from bringing a (newly) preventable disease into your country?
  - skjoldr 5y ago
    Because a passport represents a centralized storage of medical data, and that's always a bad idea.
    - 542458 5y ago
      I don’t think there’s any central storage for ICVPs today. As far as I know the records are just held by whoever normally holds your health records - the WHO trusts centres to only certify responsibly.
    - swader999 5y ago
      And Hippa concerns, this status will likely be resold as well.
      - 542458 5y ago
        There’s no such thing as HIPPA. It’s HIPAA. And it’s nowhere near as broad in terms of privacy as most people believe - it’s extremely targeted in that regard.
        swader999 5y ago
        Ok thanks. I'm not American, I still value medical privacy regardless.
- stavros 5y ago
  Because people who are in the ICU because they refuse to get vaccinated are costing the taxpayer a shitload of money. I'd be all for "you can stay unvaccinated if you like, but you won't get an ICU bed if you get severe COVID", but that's a heavier hand than a passport.
  - anonymouse008 5y ago
    I don’t know… we let people ruin their lives by throwing dice. At least in the US, it’s a country founded on chance over conformity.
  - gccsvv 5y ago
    What about the giant portion of overweight Americans? Should we forcibly restrict their calorie intake?
    - ta988 5y ago
      No, we should attack the companies that sell junk food.
      - callmejoe 5y ago
        or maybe just not eat like a pig? personal responsibility is a thing, you know.
  - blfr 5y ago
    That's ridiculous. We don't expect people to get flu vaccines before extending medical care. We don't even expect basic sexual hygiene and extend extremely expensive HIV treatments to people who have tempted fate much, much more seriously than skipping a vaccince.
    - swader999 5y ago
      It's a concerning precedent. These rights to travel, to enter a store and so on were never restricted before but now they may be. What about me, should I risk shot number two now that I've seen a flame heme show up on a routine retina scan just yesterday and am reading that this is one of the things they are seeing increase from the AZ vaccine? Will I be limited in travel and employment if I don't?
- 542458 5y ago
  Serious question, how is a vaccine passport any different from a proof of immunization (one common form being the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis), which is standard fare for travelling to/from many countries already? We’ve been using these to combat the spread of diseases like yellow fever for years.
  - blfr 5y ago
    It's being introduced to countries where such measures are new and it's being used within borders. The idea is that venue operators for concerts and other events will be checking your vaccination status. I find that Black Mirror level dystopian personally.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - tim333 5y ago
      Israel tried a domestic one and it seemed to work ok but had become kind of redundant as they have basically got rid of covid (cases from 8000 a day to 10). It wasn't very enforced - just a bit of paper you could wave to go to the gym etc. They've scrapped it now as no longer needed.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    Because we don’t force people to get all vaccines to travel. Requiring a vaccine passport for the covid vaccine forces people to get it, which is the real reason people are advocating for it.
    - ikt 5y ago
      Yes we do? We've had them for ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_international_travel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_i...
      - atq2119 5y ago
- fooey 5y ago
  There's long established precedent that schools and colleges are allowed to require proof of vaccination. The idea isn't remotely new, and is nothing so odious as critics claim
  - JackFr 5y ago
    I am not a lawyer, nor a public health legal expert but I think there is a significant legal difference between COVID and ordinary vaccine requirements because the COVID vaccines are only authorized for emergency use. I think schools and colleges requiring vaccination are also offering accommodations (distance learning, etc.) to avoid legal fights, while if the vaccines were fully authorized they would not.
    - sneak 5y ago
      > because the COVID vaccines are only authorized for emergency use. This is only a technical, legal distinction. They have been administered rapidly to a significant fraction of the population; their specific legal status is mostly irrelevant at this point. They are GA in practice, the release has been cut and people are running it. Paper pushers slapping an ass-covering "beta" on the splash screen are behind the times.
mnouquet 5y ago
> prevents serious illness and death Only in 60+ patients with co-morbidity.
- Diederich 5y ago
  I personally know two people under 60 without any co-morbidities die from Covid19. The bug is statistically less dangerous to that group, but it is still pretty dangerous.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  >> prevents serious illness and death > Only in 60+ patients with co-morbidity. That's false. See [1] for data on deaths by age in the US. There's about 115,000 deaths in the age groups < 65 as of May 2021. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
  - caeril 5y ago
    GP should have said "or with co-morbidities". Digging into the <60yo cohort, it's shockingly uncommon to find one who wasn't obese. A year of largely ineffective masking hysteria and not one noteworthy public health figure suggested putting down the donut to reduce the risk of death from COVID-19. We shuttered gyms and discouraged outdoor activity instead.
    - nemothekid 5y ago
      >not one noteworthy public health figure suggested putting down the donut to reduce the risk of death from COVID-19 Great point. The overweight should have just lost 50 pounds in 30 days.
      - DynamicStatic 5y ago
        Not sure if exactly that fast is possible but at least in 2 months it is.
    - 5y ago
trutannus 5y ago
> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime A lot of it boils down to people not trusting what they're seeing. Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. In Canada at least an insane amount of what was said turned out to be completely false, or worse harmfully false (ie: no masks, isn't airborne, ect). As a result, lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, and experts, at this point. I think if we approach the problem with that in mind we might win more people over than telling them "listen to experts", since for the past year and a half experts have been wrong almost as often as they have been right.
- avz 5y ago
  > [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Would it really be preferable if policy remained frozen to whatever people thought best on day one?
  - AwaAwa 5y ago
    Changing your beliefs on the words of your "betters", under pressure, umpteen times is not conducive to trust. Perhaps if our masters in government had heeded the story of "the boy who cried wolf", then things might have been different.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - derekp7 5y ago
    The problem is that the a large chunk of the population aren't scientist so they don't understand the principles of the scientific method. And they aren't software developers, they don't have the mindset for it. And have you seen the way many people drive? There is a reason why the term "defensive driving" was coined.
chris_va 5y ago
Some class of vaccine hesitancy boils down to miscalculating expected value. The expected value of getting a vaccine is very high, but people choose not to anyway, presumably due to misinformation or miscalculation. Lotteries here are exploiting miscalculations of expected value to incentivize behavior (0.1% of saving my life? phaw, but $100 expected value?!). It feels a bit like patching a security bug with its own vulnerability.
- splithalf 5y ago
  Some is the opposite: people know they are safe with or without it, and because there an infinitesimally small risk and very little direct personal benefit for young healthy people and then make the “rational” but myopic choice to not get vaccinated. The benefits are mostly to communities and older people, healthcare and other essential workers. A less myopic self interested rationalist might decide that despite it having a slight risk and negligible direct personal benefit for young healthy people, for the community it’s much better if everyone gets vaccinated, even young low risk people.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    I think the problem is more that they don’t understand that it is not a zero sum game of getting vaccinated with a tiny but some chance for adverse side-effects vs going on with life. It is taking a vaccine with 90%+ rate of success with exceedingly small side effects vs having a kind of high chance of getting a virus that has yet again quite a high chance of not being “just a flu” and causing long-lasting (perhaps even for a lifetime) health issues. Of course we ideally should also take into account the community benefits, but even on a personal level it is a net plus.
    - daddylongstroke 5y ago
      Hmmm, here I thought the problem is we rushed a vaccine which would usually take 7-10 years to get approved through, and are now spreading propaganda like "this vaccine is safe", instead of acknowledging the fact that no vaccine or other pharmacological treatment is ever "safe". There is no free lunch. We simply don't know what the long term side effects of the vaccine will be, because we've never been allowed to put mRNA inside humans before. The cat is now out of the bag. We will see in about 6-10 years, what long term damage will result in our organs and long term health outcomes as a result of this mass experiment. Also, I hope you understand that the 90% effectiveness rate you quote, is effectiveness of "treating your symptoms" so they're not so bad as to put you in critical condition inside a hospital. I fear most people who don't do any reading about the vaccines, believe the 90% efficacy number as touted by their medical practitioner, means that they will have a 90% chance that they won't contract the virus. Most of the highly educated people I work with, believe once they have the vaccine they no longer can contract or spread the virus.
tiborsaas 5y ago
> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime?? No, because a lot of people trust their friends or personal gurus more than any scientist or research. It doesn't matter what crap their social bubble is filled with, they can relate more to it.
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  I had someone tell me "science" is made to "replace" religion as another control mechanism... it's the "new religion". I was at a loss of words...
  - tekknik 5y ago
    Just like I’m at a loss for words as to why you think religion is a source of control. Unless you mean discipline. Why do people still have to attack religion?
    - bmn__ 5y ago
      > Why do people still have to attack religion? Because religions are still dangerous animals, if you would indulge this metaphor. Just because we managed to declaw and tame one (values of Enlightenment supplanting values of Christianity), it does not mean that we can treat all of them imprudently. I suggest that you are arguing from the point-of-view that "my $ANIMAL is well-behaved and has not and would not hurt anyone". Is that true?
      - tekknik 5y ago
        > Because religions are still dangerous animals With all but one preaching peace, and not hate, please explain.
        bmn__ 5y ago
        There is a vast gulf between what is preached and what adherents do or don't do. Knowing human nature, I think all religions have suffered abuse in the form of having peace on paper, but inciting hate through opportunists.
baobabKoodaa 5y ago
The "magic" from vaccinations comes from vaccinating most of the population so that the epidemic fizzles out. In that scenario it doesn't matter that much whether you personally are vaccinated or not. An unvaccinated person benefits from herd immunity like a vaccinated person does. From the viewpoint of a healthy young person, the risk/reward ratio of taking a vaccine is bad.
- moultano 5y ago
  No way. We need nearly everyone to get the vaccine, with the abstainers purely randomly distributed, in order to reach herd immunity, which we aren't going to reach, so it's going to keep spreading endemically, indefinitely. If you aren't vaccinated, you will inevitably get it, if not this winter, than the next, or the next. Even for healthy young people, the risk of the vaccine is orders and orders of magnitude less than the risk of the virus. This is true almost by construction, because it's strictly less spike protein.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    I disagree with your assessment regarding herd immunity. I expect Finland to reach herd immunity this year, with occasional outbreaks in following years. In this scenario, the risk of an individual contracting the disease is minuscule. That makes the risk/reward ratio of personal vaccination... not that good.
- SECProto 5y ago
  > From the viewpoint of a healthy young person, the risk/reward ratio of taking a vaccine is bad. Absolutely false. The disease can and does have severe and sometimes long-lasting impacts on young healthy people. The mRNA vaccines don't have any impact worse than a sore arm. And we aren't getting to a herd immunity level of vaccination if young people are unvaccinated.
  - markkanof 5y ago
    But why are we only considering vaccination with regards to herd immunity. Shouldn't we also be including natural immunity from previous covid infection?
zipotm 5y ago
"He who has eyes to see, let him see, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear."
neither_color 5y ago
>Unfortunately shaming such people will only push them further into antivax territory. Funny that you say that, I had the same thought when buying groceries last week. The cashier started telling me she'll never get it because it's being mandated to cull us and there's some secret database of deaths yada yada yada. Mind you I didn't ask. I felt sorry for her, even worried. She's a kind enough middle aged lady, she's been at the same grocery store for years. Somehow she's convinced that she's privy to some super secret knowledge only to be disclosed to a chosen few. It's like a nigerian email scam or Q thing. I was a little worried because she could've gotten herself fired for talking like that to the wrong person who would get mad and tell the manager. I just smiled, nodded, spoke in a low tone and said "I used to think so too but THEY want us to think that way because it weakens America if people here keep getting covid while they're over it and starting to beat us economically. Our vaccine works the best so they're spreading propaganda to scare us from getting it" I have no idea if it helped but she at least seemed intrigued that I didn't roll my eyes or scold her. People who get suckered into this stuff are in some imaginary role-play where they're the hero of the story, this article explains it. https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  Brilliant trolling sir. I hope it works. I've done some similar on reddit comments. It's hard not to want to hit them over the head though...
- deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago
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JBSay 5y ago
Vaccines are not magic. Every treatment has potential downsides. That's why they need approval to weight the potential benefit/harm trade-off.
- asveikau 5y ago
  From everything I've heard, these particular vaccines are pretty close, though. 90-95% reduction of risk. Maybe even greater reduction of serious disease? Most common side effect people seem to talk about is something like fatigue and fever for a day or two after a shot? That's a pretty good tradeoff. Especially when you consider that getting large populations vaccinated pretty much ends the pandemic.
TomSwirly 5y ago
> Unfortunately shaming such people will only push them further into antivax territory. We welcome any better suggestions. Have you ever tried to have a respectful, adult discussion based on facts with antivaxers?
- daddylongstroke 5y ago
  At least once a week, I have an adult discussion based on facts and lived truths with antivaxers, many of whom are registered nurses in the US. Why are they labeled antivaxers by society (that's usually my first question). The response generally comes down to the greater society not understanding the negative health outcomes from the routine vaccinations nursing and other hospital staff have to undergo in the US. I'll tell you what a virologist at the Cleveland Clinic told one of these RNs who cannot get the flu or other vaccines anymore, as they now threaten her life (and that of her family's). "First, you are not crazy. You are exactly the type of patient I see day in and day out: A hospital staff member, being treated by non-virology MDs as a nut case (in many cases being dropped by the doctor's office due to lack of adherence to treatment), because you accused the vaccines you take of causing your arteritis or vasculitis. Well, you're correct. You're potentially genetically predisposed, like a substantial chunk of our population, to severely increased risk of vasculitis and ultimately death by organ failure or aneurysm, by receiving any vaccine on a regular basis. You should not get a vaccine, and nobody in your family should receive regular vaccines. Yes, your completely incurable vasculitis is likely caused by the flu vaccines you've been mandated to receive year in and year out by your employer. No, the flu vaccine is not really effective at all when you look closely at the data, especially in the population it purports to be targeting specifically (the old)."
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    You are guilty of a rhetorical trick. It goes like this. Some expert in ___ holds this position because he knows all about ___ wherein the person is am expert and does indeed hold the belief. The implication is that he holds the belief which is absolutely true but leaves out the fact that the belief is not only a minority position amongst the general population but even more so amongst experts meaning expertise leads one to reject the position. The flu vaccine very very rarely causes vasculitis and almost all cases resolve favorably. One meta study of the literature identified 65 cases ever. Meanwhile it's not unusual to see 20-60k annual deaths in the United States. Statistically not getting a flu vaccination for fear of vasculitis is like not wearing a seat belt in case one wants to escape the car quickly in case one happens to get out quick in case you decide to drive into a lake today. You have misunderstood the figures on flu vaccinations. It's commonly 30-60% effective at preventing infection. If this was just true about the under 65 it would still mean fewer under 65 able to spread it to 65+ but fortunately it isn't true. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-benefits.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-benefits.htm https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066312 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

swader999 5y ago

Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.

azinman2 5y ago
It's already been the case that various countries require certain vaccines to enter, or other health clearances. These kinds of standards and even more exceptional for animals, and ultra protective for plants. Why is this any different? Why wouldn't you want someone protected from bringing a (newly) preventable disease into your country?
- skjoldr 5y ago
  Because a passport represents a centralized storage of medical data, and that's always a bad idea.
  - 542458 5y ago
    I don’t think there’s any central storage for ICVPs today. As far as I know the records are just held by whoever normally holds your health records - the WHO trusts centres to only certify responsibly.
  - swader999 5y ago
    And Hippa concerns, this status will likely be resold as well.
    - 542458 5y ago
      There’s no such thing as HIPPA. It’s HIPAA. And it’s nowhere near as broad in terms of privacy as most people believe - it’s extremely targeted in that regard.
      - swader999 5y ago
        Ok thanks. I'm not American, I still value medical privacy regardless.
stavros 5y ago
Because people who are in the ICU because they refuse to get vaccinated are costing the taxpayer a shitload of money. I'd be all for "you can stay unvaccinated if you like, but you won't get an ICU bed if you get severe COVID", but that's a heavier hand than a passport.
- anonymouse008 5y ago
  I don’t know… we let people ruin their lives by throwing dice. At least in the US, it’s a country founded on chance over conformity.
- gccsvv 5y ago
  What about the giant portion of overweight Americans? Should we forcibly restrict their calorie intake?
  - ta988 5y ago
    No, we should attack the companies that sell junk food.
    - callmejoe 5y ago
      or maybe just not eat like a pig? personal responsibility is a thing, you know.
- blfr 5y ago
  That's ridiculous. We don't expect people to get flu vaccines before extending medical care. We don't even expect basic sexual hygiene and extend extremely expensive HIV treatments to people who have tempted fate much, much more seriously than skipping a vaccince.
  - swader999 5y ago
    It's a concerning precedent. These rights to travel, to enter a store and so on were never restricted before but now they may be. What about me, should I risk shot number two now that I've seen a flame heme show up on a routine retina scan just yesterday and am reading that this is one of the things they are seeing increase from the AZ vaccine? Will I be limited in travel and employment if I don't?
542458 5y ago
Serious question, how is a vaccine passport any different from a proof of immunization (one common form being the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis), which is standard fare for travelling to/from many countries already? We’ve been using these to combat the spread of diseases like yellow fever for years.
- blfr 5y ago
  It's being introduced to countries where such measures are new and it's being used within borders. The idea is that venue operators for concerts and other events will be checking your vaccination status. I find that Black Mirror level dystopian personally.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tim333 5y ago
    Israel tried a domestic one and it seemed to work ok but had become kind of redundant as they have basically got rid of covid (cases from 8000 a day to 10). It wasn't very enforced - just a bit of paper you could wave to go to the gym etc. They've scrapped it now as no longer needed.
- tekknik 5y ago
  Because we don’t force people to get all vaccines to travel. Requiring a vaccine passport for the covid vaccine forces people to get it, which is the real reason people are advocating for it.
  - ikt 5y ago
    Yes we do? We've had them for ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_international_travel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_i...
    - atq2119 5y ago
fooey 5y ago
There's long established precedent that schools and colleges are allowed to require proof of vaccination. The idea isn't remotely new, and is nothing so odious as critics claim
- JackFr 5y ago
  I am not a lawyer, nor a public health legal expert but I think there is a significant legal difference between COVID and ordinary vaccine requirements because the COVID vaccines are only authorized for emergency use. I think schools and colleges requiring vaccination are also offering accommodations (distance learning, etc.) to avoid legal fights, while if the vaccines were fully authorized they would not.
  - sneak 5y ago
    > because the COVID vaccines are only authorized for emergency use. This is only a technical, legal distinction. They have been administered rapidly to a significant fraction of the population; their specific legal status is mostly irrelevant at this point. They are GA in practice, the release has been cut and people are running it. Paper pushers slapping an ass-covering "beta" on the splash screen are behind the times.

mnouquet 5y ago

> prevents serious illness and death Only in 60+ patients with co-morbidity.

Diederich 5y ago
I personally know two people under 60 without any co-morbidities die from Covid19. The bug is statistically less dangerous to that group, but it is still pretty dangerous.
barbazoo 5y ago
>> prevents serious illness and death > Only in 60+ patients with co-morbidity. That's false. See [1] for data on deaths by age in the US. There's about 115,000 deaths in the age groups < 65 as of May 2021. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
- caeril 5y ago
  GP should have said "or with co-morbidities". Digging into the <60yo cohort, it's shockingly uncommon to find one who wasn't obese. A year of largely ineffective masking hysteria and not one noteworthy public health figure suggested putting down the donut to reduce the risk of death from COVID-19. We shuttered gyms and discouraged outdoor activity instead.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    >not one noteworthy public health figure suggested putting down the donut to reduce the risk of death from COVID-19 Great point. The overweight should have just lost 50 pounds in 30 days.
    - DynamicStatic 5y ago
      Not sure if exactly that fast is possible but at least in 2 months it is.
  - 5y ago

trutannus 5y ago

> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime A lot of it boils down to people not trusting what they're seeing. Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. In Canada at least an insane amount of what was said turned out to be completely false, or worse harmfully false (ie: no masks, isn't airborne, ect). As a result, lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, and experts, at this point. I think if we approach the problem with that in mind we might win more people over than telling them "listen to experts", since for the past year and a half experts have been wrong almost as often as they have been right.

avz 5y ago
> [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Would it really be preferable if policy remained frozen to whatever people thought best on day one?
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  Changing your beliefs on the words of your "betters", under pressure, umpteen times is not conducive to trust. Perhaps if our masters in government had heeded the story of "the boy who cried wolf", then things might have been different.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- derekp7 5y ago
  The problem is that the a large chunk of the population aren't scientist so they don't understand the principles of the scientific method. And they aren't software developers, they don't have the mindset for it. And have you seen the way many people drive? There is a reason why the term "defensive driving" was coined.

chris_va 5y ago

Some class of vaccine hesitancy boils down to miscalculating expected value. The expected value of getting a vaccine is very high, but people choose not to anyway, presumably due to misinformation or miscalculation. Lotteries here are exploiting miscalculations of expected value to incentivize behavior (0.1% of saving my life? phaw, but $100 expected value?!). It feels a bit like patching a security bug with its own vulnerability.

splithalf 5y ago
Some is the opposite: people know they are safe with or without it, and because there an infinitesimally small risk and very little direct personal benefit for young healthy people and then make the “rational” but myopic choice to not get vaccinated. The benefits are mostly to communities and older people, healthcare and other essential workers. A less myopic self interested rationalist might decide that despite it having a slight risk and negligible direct personal benefit for young healthy people, for the community it’s much better if everyone gets vaccinated, even young low risk people.
- kaba0 5y ago
  I think the problem is more that they don’t understand that it is not a zero sum game of getting vaccinated with a tiny but some chance for adverse side-effects vs going on with life. It is taking a vaccine with 90%+ rate of success with exceedingly small side effects vs having a kind of high chance of getting a virus that has yet again quite a high chance of not being “just a flu” and causing long-lasting (perhaps even for a lifetime) health issues. Of course we ideally should also take into account the community benefits, but even on a personal level it is a net plus.
  - daddylongstroke 5y ago
    Hmmm, here I thought the problem is we rushed a vaccine which would usually take 7-10 years to get approved through, and are now spreading propaganda like "this vaccine is safe", instead of acknowledging the fact that no vaccine or other pharmacological treatment is ever "safe". There is no free lunch. We simply don't know what the long term side effects of the vaccine will be, because we've never been allowed to put mRNA inside humans before. The cat is now out of the bag. We will see in about 6-10 years, what long term damage will result in our organs and long term health outcomes as a result of this mass experiment. Also, I hope you understand that the 90% effectiveness rate you quote, is effectiveness of "treating your symptoms" so they're not so bad as to put you in critical condition inside a hospital. I fear most people who don't do any reading about the vaccines, believe the 90% efficacy number as touted by their medical practitioner, means that they will have a 90% chance that they won't contract the virus. Most of the highly educated people I work with, believe once they have the vaccine they no longer can contract or spread the virus.

tiborsaas 5y ago

> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime?? No, because a lot of people trust their friends or personal gurus more than any scientist or research. It doesn't matter what crap their social bubble is filled with, they can relate more to it.

gremlinsinc 5y ago
I had someone tell me "science" is made to "replace" religion as another control mechanism... it's the "new religion". I was at a loss of words...
- tekknik 5y ago
  Just like I’m at a loss for words as to why you think religion is a source of control. Unless you mean discipline. Why do people still have to attack religion?
  - bmn__ 5y ago
    > Why do people still have to attack religion? Because religions are still dangerous animals, if you would indulge this metaphor. Just because we managed to declaw and tame one (values of Enlightenment supplanting values of Christianity), it does not mean that we can treat all of them imprudently. I suggest that you are arguing from the point-of-view that "my $ANIMAL is well-behaved and has not and would not hurt anyone". Is that true?
    - tekknik 5y ago
      > Because religions are still dangerous animals With all but one preaching peace, and not hate, please explain.
      - bmn__ 5y ago
        There is a vast gulf between what is preached and what adherents do or don't do. Knowing human nature, I think all religions have suffered abuse in the form of having peace on paper, but inciting hate through opportunists.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago

The "magic" from vaccinations comes from vaccinating most of the population so that the epidemic fizzles out. In that scenario it doesn't matter that much whether you personally are vaccinated or not. An unvaccinated person benefits from herd immunity like a vaccinated person does. From the viewpoint of a healthy young person, the risk/reward ratio of taking a vaccine is bad.

moultano 5y ago
No way. We need nearly everyone to get the vaccine, with the abstainers purely randomly distributed, in order to reach herd immunity, which we aren't going to reach, so it's going to keep spreading endemically, indefinitely. If you aren't vaccinated, you will inevitably get it, if not this winter, than the next, or the next. Even for healthy young people, the risk of the vaccine is orders and orders of magnitude less than the risk of the virus. This is true almost by construction, because it's strictly less spike protein.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  I disagree with your assessment regarding herd immunity. I expect Finland to reach herd immunity this year, with occasional outbreaks in following years. In this scenario, the risk of an individual contracting the disease is minuscule. That makes the risk/reward ratio of personal vaccination... not that good.
SECProto 5y ago
> From the viewpoint of a healthy young person, the risk/reward ratio of taking a vaccine is bad. Absolutely false. The disease can and does have severe and sometimes long-lasting impacts on young healthy people. The mRNA vaccines don't have any impact worse than a sore arm. And we aren't getting to a herd immunity level of vaccination if young people are unvaccinated.
- markkanof 5y ago
  But why are we only considering vaccination with regards to herd immunity. Shouldn't we also be including natural immunity from previous covid infection?

zipotm 5y ago

"He who has eyes to see, let him see, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear."

neither_color 5y ago

>Unfortunately shaming such people will only push them further into antivax territory. Funny that you say that, I had the same thought when buying groceries last week. The cashier started telling me she'll never get it because it's being mandated to cull us and there's some secret database of deaths yada yada yada. Mind you I didn't ask. I felt sorry for her, even worried. She's a kind enough middle aged lady, she's been at the same grocery store for years. Somehow she's convinced that she's privy to some super secret knowledge only to be disclosed to a chosen few. It's like a nigerian email scam or Q thing. I was a little worried because she could've gotten herself fired for talking like that to the wrong person who would get mad and tell the manager. I just smiled, nodded, spoke in a low tone and said "I used to think so too but THEY want us to think that way because it weakens America if people here keep getting covid while they're over it and starting to beat us economically. Our vaccine works the best so they're spreading propaganda to scare us from getting it" I have no idea if it helped but she at least seemed intrigued that I didn't roll my eyes or scold her. People who get suckered into this stuff are in some imaginary role-play where they're the hero of the story, this article explains it. https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...

gremlinsinc 5y ago
Brilliant trolling sir. I hope it works. I've done some similar on reddit comments. It's hard not to want to hit them over the head though...
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JBSay 5y ago

Vaccines are not magic. Every treatment has potential downsides. That's why they need approval to weight the potential benefit/harm trade-off.

asveikau 5y ago
From everything I've heard, these particular vaccines are pretty close, though. 90-95% reduction of risk. Maybe even greater reduction of serious disease? Most common side effect people seem to talk about is something like fatigue and fever for a day or two after a shot? That's a pretty good tradeoff. Especially when you consider that getting large populations vaccinated pretty much ends the pandemic.

TomSwirly 5y ago

> Unfortunately shaming such people will only push them further into antivax territory. We welcome any better suggestions. Have you ever tried to have a respectful, adult discussion based on facts with antivaxers?

daddylongstroke 5y ago
At least once a week, I have an adult discussion based on facts and lived truths with antivaxers, many of whom are registered nurses in the US. Why are they labeled antivaxers by society (that's usually my first question). The response generally comes down to the greater society not understanding the negative health outcomes from the routine vaccinations nursing and other hospital staff have to undergo in the US. I'll tell you what a virologist at the Cleveland Clinic told one of these RNs who cannot get the flu or other vaccines anymore, as they now threaten her life (and that of her family's). "First, you are not crazy. You are exactly the type of patient I see day in and day out: A hospital staff member, being treated by non-virology MDs as a nut case (in many cases being dropped by the doctor's office due to lack of adherence to treatment), because you accused the vaccines you take of causing your arteritis or vasculitis. Well, you're correct. You're potentially genetically predisposed, like a substantial chunk of our population, to severely increased risk of vasculitis and ultimately death by organ failure or aneurysm, by receiving any vaccine on a regular basis. You should not get a vaccine, and nobody in your family should receive regular vaccines. Yes, your completely incurable vasculitis is likely caused by the flu vaccines you've been mandated to receive year in and year out by your employer. No, the flu vaccine is not really effective at all when you look closely at the data, especially in the population it purports to be targeting specifically (the old)."
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  You are guilty of a rhetorical trick. It goes like this. Some expert in ___ holds this position because he knows all about ___ wherein the person is am expert and does indeed hold the belief. The implication is that he holds the belief which is absolutely true but leaves out the fact that the belief is not only a minority position amongst the general population but even more so amongst experts meaning expertise leads one to reject the position. The flu vaccine very very rarely causes vasculitis and almost all cases resolve favorably. One meta study of the literature identified 65 cases ever. Meanwhile it's not unusual to see 20-60k annual deaths in the United States. Statistically not getting a flu vaccination for fear of vasculitis is like not wearing a seat belt in case one wants to escape the car quickly in case one happens to get out quick in case you decide to drive into a lake today. You have misunderstood the figures on flu vaccinations. It's commonly 30-60% effective at preventing infection. If this was just true about the under 65 it would still mean fewer under 65 able to spread it to 65+ but fortunately it isn't true. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-benefits.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-benefits.htm https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066312 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...