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Agree completely. That said, ideally I don't want either. Since a lot of people wanted to get vaccinated immediately, I can avoid that and the virus with very h

Agree completely. That said, ideally I don't want either. Since a lot of people wanted to get vaccinated immediately, I can avoid that and the virus with very high probability. If needed, I'll take v3 or so of the mRNA vaccine.

egeozcan 5y ago
If many people do what you are doing, some percentage can get the virus and allow it to mutate further, reducing the vaccine efficiency, putting others to risk. Prisoner's dilemma at play. meta edit: I don't like your post becoming completely gray and therefore up-voted you. It's a view that many people hold and it needs to be answered not by screaming "down-vote the selfish!" but rather with good arguments.
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  Oh 100%. It's a selfish play I admit. But if there's greater than zero risk of any long-term unknown effects from a vaccine, the number of people already vaccinated means the expected value is probably negative for anyone who hasn't been vaccinated yet.
  - tux3 5y ago
    Ignoring the blatant disregard for the safety of others, your calculations are off the mark. The Delta variant is the only one you should be concerned about from here on. And a single dose of vaccine only provides minimal protection against it. For your scheme to be safe, you would need about 80% of people around you to have 2+ doses of a high-efficacy vaccine, and ideally all with Pfizer over Astra, given their relative efficacy. There's a greater than zero risk you're going about this wrong and will end up catching a new variant. Vaccination works, if you ACTUALLY GET THE SHOTS. Cheers
  - devit 5y ago
    There seems to be a sizeable number of people who don't want to vaccinate, plus children under 12 won't be, and also the pandemic will survive in developing countries and travelers coming from them for a while. So I think the risk of getting infected in fall may well be significant enough to make taking the vaccine a good decision. Plus of course by vaccinating you no longer need to worry about minimizing infection risk, you don't need to get fake certificates to access things that are restricted to vaccinated people, you are free to travel to developing countries without risk. Also if you don't vaccinate now and the pandemic somehow has a resurgence you will have to rush to vaccinate then and stay at least month in full isolation while others who are vaccinated are freely going to events instead of doing the isolation now that events haven't fully resumed yet.
    - megous 5y ago
      Vaccination has its risks too. Long-term pain in the vaccinated shoulder, that will eventually spread to the other arm (due to sudden overuse), will not make you enjoy your life either. Having to test regularly may be less of a bother in life, if you lose this stupid vaccination lottery..., if you want to play on the convenience note.
- makomk 5y ago
  Realistically, there's basically no chance of vaccinating enough people fast enough on a global scale to stop the virus mutating further and reducing the vaccine efficacy, probably not even of reducing the odds of it that much, and it's not even clear that the countries with the best vaccine rollouts will manage to stop it spreading at this point. And that's despite vaccination on an unprecedented speed and scale for a disease this new, using technology that didn't even exist a few years ago.
anthomtb 5y ago
Most of the arguments against accepting an mRNA shot read as “too new, do not want” to me. What are the specific long-term side effects that one should be aware of when accepting an mRNA shot?
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  It’s more the effects of free circulating spike protein in the bloodstream than mRNA triggering ribosomes.
  - ganzuul 5y ago
    I don't understand what you are saying. What is the significance of either of those?
  - lima 5y ago
    And cytotoxicity - with the second shot, the body will have cytotoxic T cells which could target some of the transfected cells. But, why not to be worried: - It's a normal process and most cells will be replaced. - The effects would be tiny, especially compared to an infection with the real thing. If this was causing widespread issues, we would know by now. - All studies done so far indicate that only a very small amount will enter systemic circulation. It's a classic risk tradeoff, and the risks of taking the vaccine are much smaller than the risk of getting the real infection (billions of viruses replicating vs. one-time dose, real spike protein vs. stabilized spike protein).
  - Majromax 5y ago
    > It’s more the effects of free circulating spike protein in the bloodstream than mRNA triggering ribosomes. The mRNA vaccines are designed to express the spike protein in a membrane-bound form; very little is found floating free. See https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/spike-protein-circulating-in-the-vaccinated-what-does-it-mean https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/spike-protein-circula.... Additionally, the mRNA vaccines express a modified spike protein that is stabilized in its "prefusion" state (as seen on the virus itself before it binds with a cell), and the resulting complex seems to have somewhat fewer effects even when it does interact with a cell.
lrem 5y ago
Your very high probability rides on the virus dying down. Which will happen after enough people get vaccinated to bring Reff < 1. Which with the original variant required 50% of the population and probably only adults counted. With the newest variant, that threshold grows to about 80% and probably needs to involve children. The longer we wait, the higher the chance it will never die down.
- drno123 5y ago
  People who have got Covid are also immune - there is a paper published in Nature which showed that even people who had mild cases of Covid have long-term (possibly) lifetime Covid immunity. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
  - vladTheInhaler 5y ago
    Except that Covid isn't just one disease, and immunity is a moving target. If you got the original variant back in February 2020, that may or may not protect you from a new variant with new mechanisms for evading/suppressing immune response.
r3trohack3r 5y ago
I’m not sure which child to respond to, so responding here. I’m pretty well aligned with this and I’m not sure why it’s getting the downvotes. COVID has never been communicated to me as something serious for my age group. Maybe I’m misinformed, but I’ve never feared getting COVID. I was _terrified_ of needing hospital care _during a hockey stick_. COVID was communicated to me as a hospital killer. I was terrified I’d have a bad time and not get the care I needed or, worse, steal care from someone else in a zero-sum game. And it wasn’t just COVID during that window. If we “hockey sticked” and exceeded hospital capacity, any care I needed (heart problems, broken bones, different virus, etc.) would all be wrapped up in the same zero-sum game. I quarantined for months, then socially distanced, and now I’m pretty much back to life as normal. What changed for me: my perceived risk of my local hospitals getting knocked over by COVID is now close to zero. In my eyes we’ve weathered the storm. Am I missing something?
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Long covid. I'm 28, fit and healthy, and I had covid that wasn't bad enough to require hospital treatment, but left with me with fatigue, shortness of breath and heart arrythmias that are only just improving 12 months later and are still not back to full fitness.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    I am 42, fairly fit and healthy too, and I still suffer from minor heart arrhythmia and an occasional fatigue 6 months after contracting a mild case of covid.
    - r3trohack3r 5y ago
      Several folks at my gym have said similar. They’re still at 80% capacity after 6+ months of contracting COVID, and are in their 20s and 30s. Sorry this is happening to you…
      - inglor_cz 5y ago

egeozcan 5y ago

If many people do what you are doing, some percentage can get the virus and allow it to mutate further, reducing the vaccine efficiency, putting others to risk. Prisoner's dilemma at play. meta edit: I don't like your post becoming completely gray and therefore up-voted you. It's a view that many people hold and it needs to be answered not by screaming "down-vote the selfish!" but rather with good arguments.

hallway_monitor 5y ago
Oh 100%. It's a selfish play I admit. But if there's greater than zero risk of any long-term unknown effects from a vaccine, the number of people already vaccinated means the expected value is probably negative for anyone who hasn't been vaccinated yet.
- tux3 5y ago
  Ignoring the blatant disregard for the safety of others, your calculations are off the mark. The Delta variant is the only one you should be concerned about from here on. And a single dose of vaccine only provides minimal protection against it. For your scheme to be safe, you would need about 80% of people around you to have 2+ doses of a high-efficacy vaccine, and ideally all with Pfizer over Astra, given their relative efficacy. There's a greater than zero risk you're going about this wrong and will end up catching a new variant. Vaccination works, if you ACTUALLY GET THE SHOTS. Cheers
- devit 5y ago
  There seems to be a sizeable number of people who don't want to vaccinate, plus children under 12 won't be, and also the pandemic will survive in developing countries and travelers coming from them for a while. So I think the risk of getting infected in fall may well be significant enough to make taking the vaccine a good decision. Plus of course by vaccinating you no longer need to worry about minimizing infection risk, you don't need to get fake certificates to access things that are restricted to vaccinated people, you are free to travel to developing countries without risk. Also if you don't vaccinate now and the pandemic somehow has a resurgence you will have to rush to vaccinate then and stay at least month in full isolation while others who are vaccinated are freely going to events instead of doing the isolation now that events haven't fully resumed yet.
  - megous 5y ago
    Vaccination has its risks too. Long-term pain in the vaccinated shoulder, that will eventually spread to the other arm (due to sudden overuse), will not make you enjoy your life either. Having to test regularly may be less of a bother in life, if you lose this stupid vaccination lottery..., if you want to play on the convenience note.
makomk 5y ago
Realistically, there's basically no chance of vaccinating enough people fast enough on a global scale to stop the virus mutating further and reducing the vaccine efficacy, probably not even of reducing the odds of it that much, and it's not even clear that the countries with the best vaccine rollouts will manage to stop it spreading at this point. And that's despite vaccination on an unprecedented speed and scale for a disease this new, using technology that didn't even exist a few years ago.

anthomtb 5y ago

Most of the arguments against accepting an mRNA shot read as “too new, do not want” to me. What are the specific long-term side effects that one should be aware of when accepting an mRNA shot?

captainredbeard 5y ago
It’s more the effects of free circulating spike protein in the bloodstream than mRNA triggering ribosomes.
- ganzuul 5y ago
  I don't understand what you are saying. What is the significance of either of those?
- lima 5y ago
  And cytotoxicity - with the second shot, the body will have cytotoxic T cells which could target some of the transfected cells. But, why not to be worried: - It's a normal process and most cells will be replaced. - The effects would be tiny, especially compared to an infection with the real thing. If this was causing widespread issues, we would know by now. - All studies done so far indicate that only a very small amount will enter systemic circulation. It's a classic risk tradeoff, and the risks of taking the vaccine are much smaller than the risk of getting the real infection (billions of viruses replicating vs. one-time dose, real spike protein vs. stabilized spike protein).
- Majromax 5y ago
  > It’s more the effects of free circulating spike protein in the bloodstream than mRNA triggering ribosomes. The mRNA vaccines are designed to express the spike protein in a membrane-bound form; very little is found floating free. See https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/spike-protein-circulating-in-the-vaccinated-what-does-it-mean https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/spike-protein-circula.... Additionally, the mRNA vaccines express a modified spike protein that is stabilized in its "prefusion" state (as seen on the virus itself before it binds with a cell), and the resulting complex seems to have somewhat fewer effects even when it does interact with a cell.

lrem 5y ago

Your very high probability rides on the virus dying down. Which will happen after enough people get vaccinated to bring Reff < 1. Which with the original variant required 50% of the population and probably only adults counted. With the newest variant, that threshold grows to about 80% and probably needs to involve children. The longer we wait, the higher the chance it will never die down.

drno123 5y ago
People who have got Covid are also immune - there is a paper published in Nature which showed that even people who had mild cases of Covid have long-term (possibly) lifetime Covid immunity. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
- vladTheInhaler 5y ago
  Except that Covid isn't just one disease, and immunity is a moving target. If you got the original variant back in February 2020, that may or may not protect you from a new variant with new mechanisms for evading/suppressing immune response.

r3trohack3r 5y ago

I’m not sure which child to respond to, so responding here. I’m pretty well aligned with this and I’m not sure why it’s getting the downvotes. COVID has never been communicated to me as something serious for my age group. Maybe I’m misinformed, but I’ve never feared getting COVID. I was _terrified_ of needing hospital care _during a hockey stick_. COVID was communicated to me as a hospital killer. I was terrified I’d have a bad time and not get the care I needed or, worse, steal care from someone else in a zero-sum game. And it wasn’t just COVID during that window. If we “hockey sticked” and exceeded hospital capacity, any care I needed (heart problems, broken bones, different virus, etc.) would all be wrapped up in the same zero-sum game. I quarantined for months, then socially distanced, and now I’m pretty much back to life as normal. What changed for me: my perceived risk of my local hospitals getting knocked over by COVID is now close to zero. In my eyes we’ve weathered the storm. Am I missing something?

nicoburns 5y ago
Long covid. I'm 28, fit and healthy, and I had covid that wasn't bad enough to require hospital treatment, but left with me with fatigue, shortness of breath and heart arrythmias that are only just improving 12 months later and are still not back to full fitness.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  I am 42, fairly fit and healthy too, and I still suffer from minor heart arrhythmia and an occasional fatigue 6 months after contracting a mild case of covid.
  - r3trohack3r 5y ago
    Several folks at my gym have said similar. They’re still at 80% capacity after 6+ months of contracting COVID, and are in their 20s and 30s. Sorry this is happening to you…
    - inglor_cz 5y ago