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My opinion is that a lot of Americans are uneasy about government, pharmaceutical, and the media, all pushing the same narrative over a virus that has a 99% sur

My opinion is that a lot of Americans are uneasy about government, pharmaceutical, and the media, all pushing the same narrative over a virus that has a 99% survival rate. After decades of pushing drugs on us, and using the government to mandate vaccines like HPV, regardless of effectiveness, and the media manipulating us at every turn, trust in these institutions is less than rock bottom. If Americans are not getting vaccinated it’s not the citizens fault, its these institutions that suddenly want us to trust them. Personally I’m waiting as long as possible, let everyone else do the beta testing. Edit: I have had Covid as-well as everyone in my family.

alisonkisk 5y ago
why aren't people boycotting insulin or lipitor from big pharma? 1% death rate is pretty bad for a single disease everyone is going to get eventually. And the hospitalization rate is much higher than 1%
- underseacables 5y ago
  Surely you jest. Insulin and Lipitor have been studied for decades, both for safety and efficacy. Both are proven life-saving drugs. But I’ll take your point seriously: perhaps in a few years when more studies have been done to show the same efficacy and safety for the vaccine, people might begin to trust it more.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > in a few years Too late.
- muttantt 5y ago
  They should, especially because fixing type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol is a relatively easy with proper nutrition in just a few weeks.
  - giardini 5y ago
    muttantt says >"fixing type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol is a relatively easy with proper nutrition in just a few weeks."< Leaving "high cholesterol" aside, everything I've read and seen indicates that "fixing type 2 diabetes" is extremely difficult, takes months to years rather than weeks, and is especially difficult to maintain. One of my friends is yo-yoing his weight right now (e.g., down 50 lbs, up 25, down 5,...) in an attempt to cease insulin. I had no idea someone's weight could vary so quickly. His daughter polices his diet carefully, he hides candy bars and other goodies, it's an amazing struggle. Can you cite any studies that clearly state it is "relatively easy to fix type 2 diabetes"? "
loeg 5y ago
> using the government to mandate vaccines like HPV, regardless of effectiveness What concern do you have about HPV vaccine effectiveness? As far as I can tell this is a non sequitur — vaccination for HPV is effective and a positive health intervention: > The HPV vaccine works extremely well. In the 10 years after the vaccine was recommended in 2006 in the United States, quadrivalent type HPV infections decreased by 86% in female teens aged 14 to 19 years and 71% in women in their early 20s.
- underseacables 5y ago
  My concern with HPV was that it was suddenly being mandated. For many years the drug companies saw vaccines as a money loser. Suddenly they had this HPV vaccine that had the chance to make a lot of money, but it wasn’t catching on. So the drug companies turn to the government to mandate it. It makes me uneasy when a drug company says we’ve got a drug you must take it, but if you don’t will have the government force you to take it. That goes back to my distrust of the drug companies. I don’t want vaccines to be seen as a profit center.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    .. but that doesn't address the fact that it's actually effective and has public health benefits?
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      It makes no sense. It's like arguing against seat belts, just because they are mandatory! I have a family member who is like this: He agrees seat belts are important and save lives but won't wear his out of spite, purely because "I'm not going to let the government tell me what to do!" It is not logical.
      - ddingus 5y ago
        Rugged Individualism in action. That idea saw broad promotion and acceptance. The impact is a solid percentage of us basically unable to think in basic group, or class terms.
imustbeevil 5y ago
National vaccination is at 49%. Here's a bit of a thought experiment for you. Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are vaccinated. Why would they tell you not to get vaccinated?
- underseacables 5y ago
  Well personally I don’t care what Donald Trump or Tucky Carson has to say. Make decisions for your health based on your understanding.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    You are not their audience, who operates from a different mental model. Critical thinking is an essential skill, and not as prevalent as one might think. The flock deeply desires to be led from the pulpit.
- ok_coo 5y ago
  They are now (maybe not Trump, but the rest of the republicans). I don't know if they switched because they're concerned their voters are going to die or if they're worried about getting sued but there's been a sudden switch in their narrative, for whatever reason.
  - alexilliamson 5y ago
    Maybe it's because their TV narrative is different than what they believe in their hearts?
- makomk 5y ago
  Hang on a moment. Donald Trump has been telling people to get vaccinated both before and after he left office. Hell, endless column inches were spilled by respected publications about how early approval of the vaccines would be an evil conspiracy by Trump to inject the public with untested vaccines. Why do you think he told people not to get vaccinated? The only people I've found he opposes Covid vaccines for is children, and honestly that's well within the range of mainstream opinion despite the media hand-wringing over it; only some countries are planning on mass vaccination of children, and the evidence for the benefits to them outweighing the risks is iffy.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
eropple nailed it with a comment the other day [1], that it's a breakdown of trust in societal fabric. Reading that comment was my "ah ha" root cause revelation moment. Everything else flows from that: vaccine hesitancy, refusal to wear masks, distrust in government, etc. And that distrust is being weaponized. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27911793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27911793
okprod 5y ago
I think part of the reluctance to get vaccinated also stems from the age-old "Americans have freedom" ideal, freedom to bear arms, freedom to refuse masks and the vaccine, etc. Personally, I don't believe I would die from any of the variants. However, I got the vaccine because I don't want to become one of the infected with longer-term problems, including permanently reduced lung capacity.
- Grim-444 5y ago
  Could you link to a single study that comes to the same conclusions about long term lung problems? Not an opinion piece, facts. Not Reddit/Twitter posts, an actual, scientific, study.
  - raphlinus 5y ago
    https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2021210033 https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2021210033
  - zachrose 5y ago
    How about a meta-analysis of several studies? Respiratory function in patients post-infection by COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis DOI: 10.1016/j.pulmoe.2020.10.013
- mason55 5y ago
  It's so bizarre. Very few people would argue that they have the freedom to pump chemicals into the air that kill 1% of the population. You have the freedom to do what you want with your body but when it impacts me then that freedom stops being absolute and becomes more nuanced. If you don't want to be vaccinated then that's fine, but you're not allowed to put me at risk with your choice. I almost compare it to drunk driving laws. You can get as drunk as you want at home. But when you get into a car, your choices start to impact everyone else, and your right to get as drunk as you want and die in a single-car accident is trumped by my right to not be subject to undue risk when I'm in public. Even if the risk is low, maybe you've driven drunk 1000 times and never killed anyone, my right to be safe trumps your right to drive drunk.
pyrophane 5y ago
> using the government to mandate vaccines like HPV, regardless of effectiveness It is worth noting that the HPV vaccine is effective: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/safety-effectiveness.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/safety-effectivenes... As far as I am aware, mandates have been implemented in only a few places, at the state and local level.
- underseacables 5y ago
  That is true, initially the drug companies were pushing it at the federal level, but there was such a backlash that they backed off and tried to go at it state by state.
  - babyblueblanket 5y ago
    This seems like goalposts being moved.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > That is true, initially the drug companies were pushing it at the federal level, but there was such a backlash that they backed off and tried to go at it state by state. Do you have a source for some kind of proposed federal mandate (excluding DOA bills by a backbenchers, because those mean nothing)? As far as I know, vaccine mandates have always been a state/local thing, usually only tied school entry requirements.
bigbillheck 5y ago
> 99% survival rate The chances of getting in a car accident in any given trip is way less than 99%, that doesn't mean I'm not going to wear seatbelts.
- underseacables 5y ago
  That’s a strawman argument. A seatbelt is a physical device, you don’t inject it into your veins.
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
    The vaccine isn't injected into the veins, it's injected into the muscle. Tattoos are also injected into the muscles, and if you only had a 99% survival rate on those they'd be illegal and only the craziest of daredevils would risk them. Anyway, my point is something with a 1% death rate is incredibly dangerous.
    - giardini 5y ago
      I don't think tattoos are injected into the muscles - they're only skin-deep! But good on the 1%!
      - bigbillheck 5y ago
        > I don't think tattoos are injected into the muscles - they're only skin-deep! Well rats, there goes that analogy. But I've got another one: maybe a decade ago I had to give a loved one IM injections regularly (there was a class at the hospital and everything), and if there had been a 1% chance of fatal results the drug wouldn't have made it out of the lab.
        falcolas 5y ago
        Insulin. Imagine insulin with a 1% fatality rate.
bb88 5y ago
> Personally I’m waiting as long as possible, let everyone else do the beta testing. Technically that's what clinical testing is. Further we're long past beta testing with a large percentage of people being vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers have done more damage to the country by scaring people from getting the vaccine without providing any serious proof.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Further we're long past beta testing with a large percentage of people being vaccinated How is a large percentage of people getting the beta an indication that we're past beta testing? None of the vaccines have FDA approval.
  - bb88 5y ago
    Yes. Yes they have FDA approval.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      So, for those of us who think the last state of play was that they did not have approval, can you point us to something official?
      - jaybrendansmith 5y ago
        They have emergency approval. All major studies are completed, Clinical Study Reports are submitted with all evidence, Case Report Forms, datasets. It is important but largely a bureaucratic and scientific exercise at this point. These vaccines are safer and more effective, with less side effects, than the bulk of all medicines submitted last year. People have been working around the clock for the last 18 months on these treatments in an attempt to save more lives. If the propagandists cared a whit about humanity they would encourage everybody to vaccinate immediately. It is quite possible that a variant will be created by the unvaccinated that is resistant to the vaccines, one that is perhaps even more deadly, instantly turning the world back to lockdown for another year.
hn8788 5y ago
That's definitely true for my father. Over the past year he's seen media and government officials go from "masks are useless if you aren't sick" to "if you don't wear a mask you're risking the lives of everyone around you", and "Trump rushing vaccine production could be worse than COVID" to "if you don't get a vaccine, you're going to kill people that can't get vaccinated". He's got no faith in the government any more, and would rather risk getting sick than try to keep up with whatever narrative is being pushed on any given week.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  I think it s because people like your father (and mine), expect faith to guide their opinion of a government. But that sounds very silly to me: you can explain it with reason rather than a faith/betrayal fairytale. The government is made of imperfect employees like you and me, imbued by a mission to transform tax money into social guidance. At first, there were no mask and no knowledge, they chose to avoid a mask rush that would have led nowhere while inventing excuses to explain it, or nobody would follow. But as everyone they slowly learn and as factories start building the masks, they get easier to enforce. It might yet be another mistake, if at an even deeper level masks are non beneficial, and they might yet change their mind. You can absolutely just accept faith isnt our guide and follow the best effort estimate of the people we pay for producing it. Dont wear the mask when they think it wont work, wear it when they discover maybe actually it might, remove it when ... you get the point. Nobody knows, the government is not trying to steal our money with vaccines: they already did with taxes.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    That "inventing excuses to explain it" erodes trust in institutions, especially when the excuses are pretty transparently garbage.
- freshpots 5y ago
  It's only a narrative if you choose to believe what you want to while only scraping the surface. Masks were rationed at the beginning until there was supply. There were legitimate concerns about rushing the vaccine under Trump before testing was complete. Then many countries completed testing and approved the vaccine. This was/is basic stuff to anyone who makes an effort to inform themselves.
mberning 5y ago
Exactly. I am not anti-vax at all, but I am not eager to take a new class of vaccine developed in less than a year. The state government here has been paying for TV and radio ads nonstop with various doctors talking about how the vaccine is “safe and effective”. Even though it has been beta tested on millions of people I don’t think we can draw any conclusions about long term safety at this point. I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive.
- babyblueblanket 5y ago
  The new class of vaccine was developed years and years ago for SARS 1 fwiw, was tested and even approved. But by the time it was ready there was no demand. It's not actually new.
  - mberning 5y ago
    There is a big difference between being known about and tested in a lab and being mass produced, approved, and administered to millions of patients. The covid vaccines are the first of this class to be broadly rolled out.
- bb88 5y ago
  >I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive. Sure, the vaccine appears less effective to the delta variant. But that's not a reason to avoid it. One of the long term effects of not getting the vaccine is death. The recent stories coming out of hospitals where people are dying even though there's a vaccine available is tragic. Let's hope it doesn't happen to you.
  - tfandango 5y ago
    I now know 2 people who could have gotten vaccinated and did not, then died of covid. I know another who went to Florida on vacation, contracted covid, and is now stuck in a hotel room hopefully recovering (I wonder about hotel staff). It all seems so tragic and also so maddening, it could have all been avoided. The vaccine could also have prevented the pain and suffering of their remaining families.
DinoDad13 5y ago
While you're waiting are you social distancing and wearing masks?
- soco 5y ago
  In my experience those claiming to "sit and wait" when poked will actually reveal they're the entire range of conspiracy theories, so to answer your question I'd dare to say "no they're not".
  - anthonygd 5y ago
    In my experience those claiming to "sit and wait" have all been vaccinated now. After they waited a month or two and saw minimal side effects.
    - soco 5y ago
      Well this would be the real point of "sit and wait". Kudos to them, then.
raverbashing 5y ago
It's interesting when people say "wait and see" about a tested (in tens of thousands of people), reviewed pharmaceutical product and prefer to take their chances with a random quantity of inhaled bat-poop virus. Good luck then I guess. relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/2397/ https://xkcd.com/2397/
mrighele 5y ago
99% survival rate is not comforting given the high transmissibility of the virus. For example India had almost 5 million excess deaths during the pandemic
Diederich 5y ago
Per https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ 625k deaths in the US over 35147k cases, a death rate of 1.78% Current US population is about 328M. 1.78% death rate across 328M is close to 6M.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  actual infection rate is likely 3x that number. deaths have also been likely undercounted a bit although 625k is a lot closer to the current 700k estimate of excess deaths than it used to be.
kube-system 5y ago
> a virus that has a 99% survival rate. It doesn't. The case-fatality ratio is 2.15%. And this is with preventative actions being taken which allow higher percentages of people to obtain healthcare. If treatment was even more scarce than it has been, the death rate would climb even more.
- underseacables 5y ago
  That’s it? So it has a 98.75% survival rate?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Yeah, "that's it". For context, that's: * 215% deadlier than anthrax. * 2150% deadlier than polio. * about the same as the average death rate between the two smallpox strains, and on-par with the spanish flu
    - leereeves 5y ago
      That's the CFR for cutaneous anthrax. Pulmonary and gastrointestinal anthrax CFRs are over 50%. Smallpox, variola major has a 30% CFR. Both are much worse than either covid or the flu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fat...
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - kube-system 5y ago
        I picked the specific comparisons I did because few would discount the concerns of a cutaneous anthrax infection or smallpox, variola minor. "Oh it's just a minor case of smallpox" said nobody. Yes, bad cases of smallpox and anthrax are worse than COVID. And, the flu is pretty bad, but COVID is significantly more deadly than the Influenza A.
JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
Having spoken with older generations, I can tell you their concrete concerns of seeing others die or become disabled from polio is 1 or 2 magnitudes more relevant than vague concerns of government or pharmaceutical industry. Problem is, people today haven't seen the tough stuff. If every third person had Ebola you wouldn't have the luxury of opining on government unease, because your lived reality would look far different. We've had it good. Maybe people complaining about these things is a concrete sign of how much progress we've made.
- mpl 5y ago
  I can't recall where I read/heard this, but someone posited that if covid impacted children the way polio did, the response would be different.
uses 5y ago
> pushing the same narrative Oh boy, what do you dispute? That covid is real? Do you dispute that over 600,000 Americans have died from covid? Those are only the ones we know about. And that's with our incredible luck to have lived in a time where we can develop a vaccine with incredible speed and effectiveness. And that's with all the measures we've taken to hold back the virus, with people like you kicking and screaming the entire way. Maybe you're hearing the same "narrative" because it's reality. We know what would happen if we did nothing - see New York, Iran, Italy last year. I don't know what people like you want. Apparently you want to sit back and pout with your conspiracy theories while the rest of us do our part.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gentleman11 5y ago
> One in five Americans believes the US government is using the COVID-19 vaccine to microchip the population I think people should get vaccinated, but admittedly there is a profound lack of trust in institutions these days. misconceptions like this microchip theory would be 100x less likely if the government wasn’t literally surveilling your every movement and communicated word with the help of big tech The institutions behave in a profoundly untrustworthy way for generations, then people stop trusting them. Society breaks down. It’s that simple. In 30 years this will be amazingly worse unless things change
- leereeves 5y ago
  It doesn't help that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is indeed talking about "Surveillance". https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/vaccine-development-and-surveillance https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-hea... They funded the development of a quantum dot to track vaccinations. The distinction between that and a microchip to track people is difficult for many to understand. It's surprising how clueless or indifferent they are about people's privacy concerns.
tablespoon 5y ago
> all pushing the same narrative over a virus that has a 99% survival rate. You talk like a 99% survival rate is pretty good and means it's not something to worry about. One percent of the US population is 3.28 million people. Which is oddly enough about the population of the entire metro area I live in. So Russia could nuke my city and kill everyone, and the US would still have a 99% survival rate. Cut the number of deaths in half, for a 99.5% survival rate, and you're still taking out a city like Milwaukee. > and the media manipulating us at every turn, trust in these institutions is less than rock bottom The media may be manipulating you, but the people who sell the media manipulation narrative are usually do so to manipulate you even more. It's like deciding to eat dogshit because there was a fly in your food. Yeah, there's a problem with the food, but it's still better than dogshit.
timeon 5y ago
People are so scared these days. It is just few (2) shots. Do not take yourself so seriously.
kazinator 5y ago
> After decades of pushing drugs on us E.g. the US government had a role in the opioid crisis.
J5892 5y ago
Congratulations. You beat 100 to 1 odds that you will die. Personally, I don't know why anyone would take that bet when they don't have to.
pupppet 5y ago
The reason the survival rate across all ages is so high is because the elderly are bearing the brunt of this. If I knew grandma and grandpa had basically a dice-roll's chance of dying from COVID I wouldn't be putting too much stock into that 99% number.
c0nducktr 5y ago
> Edit: I have had Covid as-well as everyone in my family. Yeah, no surprise there lol Thanks for beta-testing covid-19 for us though.

alisonkisk 5y ago

why aren't people boycotting insulin or lipitor from big pharma? 1% death rate is pretty bad for a single disease everyone is going to get eventually. And the hospitalization rate is much higher than 1%

underseacables 5y ago
Surely you jest. Insulin and Lipitor have been studied for decades, both for safety and efficacy. Both are proven life-saving drugs. But I’ll take your point seriously: perhaps in a few years when more studies have been done to show the same efficacy and safety for the vaccine, people might begin to trust it more.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > in a few years Too late.
muttantt 5y ago
They should, especially because fixing type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol is a relatively easy with proper nutrition in just a few weeks.
- giardini 5y ago
  muttantt says >"fixing type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol is a relatively easy with proper nutrition in just a few weeks."< Leaving "high cholesterol" aside, everything I've read and seen indicates that "fixing type 2 diabetes" is extremely difficult, takes months to years rather than weeks, and is especially difficult to maintain. One of my friends is yo-yoing his weight right now (e.g., down 50 lbs, up 25, down 5,...) in an attempt to cease insulin. I had no idea someone's weight could vary so quickly. His daughter polices his diet carefully, he hides candy bars and other goodies, it's an amazing struggle. Can you cite any studies that clearly state it is "relatively easy to fix type 2 diabetes"? "

loeg 5y ago

> using the government to mandate vaccines like HPV, regardless of effectiveness What concern do you have about HPV vaccine effectiveness? As far as I can tell this is a non sequitur — vaccination for HPV is effective and a positive health intervention: > The HPV vaccine works extremely well. In the 10 years after the vaccine was recommended in 2006 in the United States, quadrivalent type HPV infections decreased by 86% in female teens aged 14 to 19 years and 71% in women in their early 20s.

underseacables 5y ago
My concern with HPV was that it was suddenly being mandated. For many years the drug companies saw vaccines as a money loser. Suddenly they had this HPV vaccine that had the chance to make a lot of money, but it wasn’t catching on. So the drug companies turn to the government to mandate it. It makes me uneasy when a drug company says we’ve got a drug you must take it, but if you don’t will have the government force you to take it. That goes back to my distrust of the drug companies. I don’t want vaccines to be seen as a profit center.
- pjc50 5y ago
  .. but that doesn't address the fact that it's actually effective and has public health benefits?
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    It makes no sense. It's like arguing against seat belts, just because they are mandatory! I have a family member who is like this: He agrees seat belts are important and save lives but won't wear his out of spite, purely because "I'm not going to let the government tell me what to do!" It is not logical.
    - ddingus 5y ago
      Rugged Individualism in action. That idea saw broad promotion and acceptance. The impact is a solid percentage of us basically unable to think in basic group, or class terms.

imustbeevil 5y ago

National vaccination is at 49%. Here's a bit of a thought experiment for you. Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are vaccinated. Why would they tell you not to get vaccinated?

underseacables 5y ago
Well personally I don’t care what Donald Trump or Tucky Carson has to say. Make decisions for your health based on your understanding.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  You are not their audience, who operates from a different mental model. Critical thinking is an essential skill, and not as prevalent as one might think. The flock deeply desires to be led from the pulpit.
ok_coo 5y ago
They are now (maybe not Trump, but the rest of the republicans). I don't know if they switched because they're concerned their voters are going to die or if they're worried about getting sued but there's been a sudden switch in their narrative, for whatever reason.
- alexilliamson 5y ago
  Maybe it's because their TV narrative is different than what they believe in their hearts?
makomk 5y ago
Hang on a moment. Donald Trump has been telling people to get vaccinated both before and after he left office. Hell, endless column inches were spilled by respected publications about how early approval of the vaccines would be an evil conspiracy by Trump to inject the public with untested vaccines. Why do you think he told people not to get vaccinated? The only people I've found he opposes Covid vaccines for is children, and honestly that's well within the range of mainstream opinion despite the media hand-wringing over it; only some countries are planning on mass vaccination of children, and the evidence for the benefits to them outweighing the risks is iffy.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

eropple nailed it with a comment the other day [1], that it's a breakdown of trust in societal fabric. Reading that comment was my "ah ha" root cause revelation moment. Everything else flows from that: vaccine hesitancy, refusal to wear masks, distrust in government, etc. And that distrust is being weaponized. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27911793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27911793

okprod 5y ago

I think part of the reluctance to get vaccinated also stems from the age-old "Americans have freedom" ideal, freedom to bear arms, freedom to refuse masks and the vaccine, etc. Personally, I don't believe I would die from any of the variants. However, I got the vaccine because I don't want to become one of the infected with longer-term problems, including permanently reduced lung capacity.

Grim-444 5y ago
Could you link to a single study that comes to the same conclusions about long term lung problems? Not an opinion piece, facts. Not Reddit/Twitter posts, an actual, scientific, study.
- raphlinus 5y ago
  https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2021210033 https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2021210033
- zachrose 5y ago
  How about a meta-analysis of several studies? Respiratory function in patients post-infection by COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis DOI: 10.1016/j.pulmoe.2020.10.013
mason55 5y ago
It's so bizarre. Very few people would argue that they have the freedom to pump chemicals into the air that kill 1% of the population. You have the freedom to do what you want with your body but when it impacts me then that freedom stops being absolute and becomes more nuanced. If you don't want to be vaccinated then that's fine, but you're not allowed to put me at risk with your choice. I almost compare it to drunk driving laws. You can get as drunk as you want at home. But when you get into a car, your choices start to impact everyone else, and your right to get as drunk as you want and die in a single-car accident is trumped by my right to not be subject to undue risk when I'm in public. Even if the risk is low, maybe you've driven drunk 1000 times and never killed anyone, my right to be safe trumps your right to drive drunk.

pyrophane 5y ago

> using the government to mandate vaccines like HPV, regardless of effectiveness It is worth noting that the HPV vaccine is effective: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/safety-effectiveness.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/safety-effectivenes... As far as I am aware, mandates have been implemented in only a few places, at the state and local level.

underseacables 5y ago
That is true, initially the drug companies were pushing it at the federal level, but there was such a backlash that they backed off and tried to go at it state by state.
- babyblueblanket 5y ago
  This seems like goalposts being moved.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > That is true, initially the drug companies were pushing it at the federal level, but there was such a backlash that they backed off and tried to go at it state by state. Do you have a source for some kind of proposed federal mandate (excluding DOA bills by a backbenchers, because those mean nothing)? As far as I know, vaccine mandates have always been a state/local thing, usually only tied school entry requirements.

bigbillheck 5y ago

> 99% survival rate The chances of getting in a car accident in any given trip is way less than 99%, that doesn't mean I'm not going to wear seatbelts.

underseacables 5y ago
That’s a strawman argument. A seatbelt is a physical device, you don’t inject it into your veins.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  The vaccine isn't injected into the veins, it's injected into the muscle. Tattoos are also injected into the muscles, and if you only had a 99% survival rate on those they'd be illegal and only the craziest of daredevils would risk them. Anyway, my point is something with a 1% death rate is incredibly dangerous.
  - giardini 5y ago
    I don't think tattoos are injected into the muscles - they're only skin-deep! But good on the 1%!
    - bigbillheck 5y ago
      > I don't think tattoos are injected into the muscles - they're only skin-deep! Well rats, there goes that analogy. But I've got another one: maybe a decade ago I had to give a loved one IM injections regularly (there was a class at the hospital and everything), and if there had been a 1% chance of fatal results the drug wouldn't have made it out of the lab.
      - falcolas 5y ago
        Insulin. Imagine insulin with a 1% fatality rate.

bb88 5y ago

> Personally I’m waiting as long as possible, let everyone else do the beta testing. Technically that's what clinical testing is. Further we're long past beta testing with a large percentage of people being vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers have done more damage to the country by scaring people from getting the vaccine without providing any serious proof.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
Further we're long past beta testing with a large percentage of people being vaccinated How is a large percentage of people getting the beta an indication that we're past beta testing? None of the vaccines have FDA approval.
- bb88 5y ago
  Yes. Yes they have FDA approval.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    So, for those of us who think the last state of play was that they did not have approval, can you point us to something official?
    - jaybrendansmith 5y ago
      They have emergency approval. All major studies are completed, Clinical Study Reports are submitted with all evidence, Case Report Forms, datasets. It is important but largely a bureaucratic and scientific exercise at this point. These vaccines are safer and more effective, with less side effects, than the bulk of all medicines submitted last year. People have been working around the clock for the last 18 months on these treatments in an attempt to save more lives. If the propagandists cared a whit about humanity they would encourage everybody to vaccinate immediately. It is quite possible that a variant will be created by the unvaccinated that is resistant to the vaccines, one that is perhaps even more deadly, instantly turning the world back to lockdown for another year.

hn8788 5y ago

That's definitely true for my father. Over the past year he's seen media and government officials go from "masks are useless if you aren't sick" to "if you don't wear a mask you're risking the lives of everyone around you", and "Trump rushing vaccine production could be worse than COVID" to "if you don't get a vaccine, you're going to kill people that can't get vaccinated". He's got no faith in the government any more, and would rather risk getting sick than try to keep up with whatever narrative is being pushed on any given week.

xwolfi 5y ago
I think it s because people like your father (and mine), expect faith to guide their opinion of a government. But that sounds very silly to me: you can explain it with reason rather than a faith/betrayal fairytale. The government is made of imperfect employees like you and me, imbued by a mission to transform tax money into social guidance. At first, there were no mask and no knowledge, they chose to avoid a mask rush that would have led nowhere while inventing excuses to explain it, or nobody would follow. But as everyone they slowly learn and as factories start building the masks, they get easier to enforce. It might yet be another mistake, if at an even deeper level masks are non beneficial, and they might yet change their mind. You can absolutely just accept faith isnt our guide and follow the best effort estimate of the people we pay for producing it. Dont wear the mask when they think it wont work, wear it when they discover maybe actually it might, remove it when ... you get the point. Nobody knows, the government is not trying to steal our money with vaccines: they already did with taxes.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  That "inventing excuses to explain it" erodes trust in institutions, especially when the excuses are pretty transparently garbage.
freshpots 5y ago
It's only a narrative if you choose to believe what you want to while only scraping the surface. Masks were rationed at the beginning until there was supply. There were legitimate concerns about rushing the vaccine under Trump before testing was complete. Then many countries completed testing and approved the vaccine. This was/is basic stuff to anyone who makes an effort to inform themselves.

mberning 5y ago

Exactly. I am not anti-vax at all, but I am not eager to take a new class of vaccine developed in less than a year. The state government here has been paying for TV and radio ads nonstop with various doctors talking about how the vaccine is “safe and effective”. Even though it has been beta tested on millions of people I don’t think we can draw any conclusions about long term safety at this point. I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive.

babyblueblanket 5y ago
The new class of vaccine was developed years and years ago for SARS 1 fwiw, was tested and even approved. But by the time it was ready there was no demand. It's not actually new.
- mberning 5y ago
  There is a big difference between being known about and tested in a lab and being mass produced, approved, and administered to millions of patients. The covid vaccines are the first of this class to be broadly rolled out.
bb88 5y ago
>I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive. Sure, the vaccine appears less effective to the delta variant. But that's not a reason to avoid it. One of the long term effects of not getting the vaccine is death. The recent stories coming out of hospitals where people are dying even though there's a vaccine available is tragic. Let's hope it doesn't happen to you.
- tfandango 5y ago
  I now know 2 people who could have gotten vaccinated and did not, then died of covid. I know another who went to Florida on vacation, contracted covid, and is now stuck in a hotel room hopefully recovering (I wonder about hotel staff). It all seems so tragic and also so maddening, it could have all been avoided. The vaccine could also have prevented the pain and suffering of their remaining families.

DinoDad13 5y ago

While you're waiting are you social distancing and wearing masks?

soco 5y ago
In my experience those claiming to "sit and wait" when poked will actually reveal they're the entire range of conspiracy theories, so to answer your question I'd dare to say "no they're not".
- anthonygd 5y ago
  In my experience those claiming to "sit and wait" have all been vaccinated now. After they waited a month or two and saw minimal side effects.
  - soco 5y ago
    Well this would be the real point of "sit and wait". Kudos to them, then.

raverbashing 5y ago

It's interesting when people say "wait and see" about a tested (in tens of thousands of people), reviewed pharmaceutical product and prefer to take their chances with a random quantity of inhaled bat-poop virus. Good luck then I guess. relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/2397/ https://xkcd.com/2397/

mrighele 5y ago

99% survival rate is not comforting given the high transmissibility of the virus. For example India had almost 5 million excess deaths during the pandemic

Diederich 5y ago

Per https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ 625k deaths in the US over 35147k cases, a death rate of 1.78% Current US population is about 328M. 1.78% death rate across 328M is close to 6M.

lamontcg 5y ago
actual infection rate is likely 3x that number. deaths have also been likely undercounted a bit although 625k is a lot closer to the current 700k estimate of excess deaths than it used to be.

kube-system 5y ago

> a virus that has a 99% survival rate. It doesn't. The case-fatality ratio is 2.15%. And this is with preventative actions being taken which allow higher percentages of people to obtain healthcare. If treatment was even more scarce than it has been, the death rate would climb even more.

underseacables 5y ago
That’s it? So it has a 98.75% survival rate?
- kube-system 5y ago
  Yeah, "that's it". For context, that's: * 215% deadlier than anthrax. * 2150% deadlier than polio. * about the same as the average death rate between the two smallpox strains, and on-par with the spanish flu
  - leereeves 5y ago
    That's the CFR for cutaneous anthrax. Pulmonary and gastrointestinal anthrax CFRs are over 50%. Smallpox, variola major has a 30% CFR. Both are much worse than either covid or the flu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fat...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I picked the specific comparisons I did because few would discount the concerns of a cutaneous anthrax infection or smallpox, variola minor. "Oh it's just a minor case of smallpox" said nobody. Yes, bad cases of smallpox and anthrax are worse than COVID. And, the flu is pretty bad, but COVID is significantly more deadly than the Influenza A.

JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago

Having spoken with older generations, I can tell you their concrete concerns of seeing others die or become disabled from polio is 1 or 2 magnitudes more relevant than vague concerns of government or pharmaceutical industry. Problem is, people today haven't seen the tough stuff. If every third person had Ebola you wouldn't have the luxury of opining on government unease, because your lived reality would look far different. We've had it good. Maybe people complaining about these things is a concrete sign of how much progress we've made.

mpl 5y ago
I can't recall where I read/heard this, but someone posited that if covid impacted children the way polio did, the response would be different.

uses 5y ago

> pushing the same narrative Oh boy, what do you dispute? That covid is real? Do you dispute that over 600,000 Americans have died from covid? Those are only the ones we know about. And that's with our incredible luck to have lived in a time where we can develop a vaccine with incredible speed and effectiveness. And that's with all the measures we've taken to hold back the virus, with people like you kicking and screaming the entire way. Maybe you're hearing the same "narrative" because it's reality. We know what would happen if we did nothing - see New York, Iran, Italy last year. I don't know what people like you want. Apparently you want to sit back and pout with your conspiracy theories while the rest of us do our part.

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gentleman11 5y ago

> One in five Americans believes the US government is using the COVID-19 vaccine to microchip the population I think people should get vaccinated, but admittedly there is a profound lack of trust in institutions these days. misconceptions like this microchip theory would be 100x less likely if the government wasn’t literally surveilling your every movement and communicated word with the help of big tech The institutions behave in a profoundly untrustworthy way for generations, then people stop trusting them. Society breaks down. It’s that simple. In 30 years this will be amazingly worse unless things change

leereeves 5y ago
It doesn't help that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is indeed talking about "Surveillance". https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/vaccine-development-and-surveillance https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-hea... They funded the development of a quantum dot to track vaccinations. The distinction between that and a microchip to track people is difficult for many to understand. It's surprising how clueless or indifferent they are about people's privacy concerns.

tablespoon 5y ago

> all pushing the same narrative over a virus that has a 99% survival rate. You talk like a 99% survival rate is pretty good and means it's not something to worry about. One percent of the US population is 3.28 million people. Which is oddly enough about the population of the entire metro area I live in. So Russia could nuke my city and kill everyone, and the US would still have a 99% survival rate. Cut the number of deaths in half, for a 99.5% survival rate, and you're still taking out a city like Milwaukee. > and the media manipulating us at every turn, trust in these institutions is less than rock bottom The media may be manipulating you, but the people who sell the media manipulation narrative are usually do so to manipulate you even more. It's like deciding to eat dogshit because there was a fly in your food. Yeah, there's a problem with the food, but it's still better than dogshit.

timeon 5y ago

People are so scared these days. It is just few (2) shots. Do not take yourself so seriously.

kazinator 5y ago

> After decades of pushing drugs on us E.g. the US government had a role in the opioid crisis.

J5892 5y ago

Congratulations. You beat 100 to 1 odds that you will die. Personally, I don't know why anyone would take that bet when they don't have to.

pupppet 5y ago

The reason the survival rate across all ages is so high is because the elderly are bearing the brunt of this. If I knew grandma and grandpa had basically a dice-roll's chance of dying from COVID I wouldn't be putting too much stock into that 99% number.

c0nducktr 5y ago

> Edit: I have had Covid as-well as everyone in my family. Yeah, no surprise there lol Thanks for beta-testing covid-19 for us though.