8 ms·

I got Pfizer but I'm not worried about this. If these side effects were really widespread we'd have heard of them long ago. If they were even 1 in 10.000 their

I got Pfizer but I'm not worried about this. If these side effects were really widespread we'd have heard of them long ago. If they were even 1 in 10.000 their cases would be overwhelming the hospitals by now. Covid is a lot nastier by the sounds of it. And much more likely in an unvaccinated population. I still fully stand by my decision to get it the very day it became available to me.

Overton-Window 5y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah I know there are side effects for many people. For me the second time it felt a bit like I ran into a door handle at the spot where I got the jab. Like a minor bruise. That was all. But this is anecdotal of course. Some people will get it worse. They always said side effects would be possible for some people. There's also a reason we all have to wait 15 minutes before leaving. The possible allergy is another anticipated side-effect. If these were serious and common however, really the hospitals would be so busy by now taking care of all of them. The number of people that got the vaccine here in europe in the space of the last few months is enormous. We started much later than the US but have caught up in a really short time. And with the exception of the UK most countries have used mostly mRNA types and very little AstraZeneca. As a result we had (and probably still have) higher numbers going through vaccination per month than the US. Even the tiniest percentage of serious complications would have been flooding the hospitals which were already at high pressure due to covid.
- mc32 5y ago
  Like any other vaccine, I weighed the risk vs benefit and took the odds and got vaccinated. I'm for vaccination. I'm not for forcing vaccines upon a population who are hesitant for their own reasons for something that so far, is a relatively mid-level virus. If this were the plague, I'd want more stringent enforcement, given the same vaccine odds. That said, I hope Twitter et al don't knee jerk react-to this and block discussion just because it would counter their preferred narrative.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I remember quite a few SARS and swine-flu scares over the past few decades - the disease would be quite destructive but small in scale. We aren't at "bring out your dead" levels yet but we have been living primarily in lockdowns for the past year and a half. If this doesn't qualify as a plague we should take seriously and address I'm rather afraid what would actually reach that level for you.
    - grillvogel 5y ago
      if covid was truly frightening we wouldn't need government mandates forcing people to take it seriously
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        People aren't good at estimating danger that's indirect. I can provide examples.
  - timeon 5y ago
    > Like any other vaccine or drugs in general. Just look at adverse effects of Ibuprofen. Common drug, but unlike vaccines, it is not used for whole population at once. So adverse effects even if more common are not that visible.
lixtra 5y ago
Some effects may take a long time to develop. Not related but a very slow biological process (prions): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27982991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27982991
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  You can always make a "you never know, something completely unforeseen may happe", and you will be right. Of course, people tend to only make those arguments for things they don't really want to be done.
  - artursapek 5y ago
    Not really. This has been the argument against pesticides and GMO foods for years, and it’s completely valid in hindsight.
    - yongjik 5y ago
      GMO is a good example why such concerns are not always right. (See also: cell phone radiation.)
    - nawgz 5y ago
      Are pesticides and GMO foods - two things which are reapplied on a frequent basis, relatively speaking - actually comparable to an instance in time where someone received one or two shots once? I think the most famous/deadly instances of drugs having side effects which discovered after mass deployment have generally been for medicines one ingests continuously, no? I, as an untrained and uneducated individual, find it almost impossible to imagine a drug / technology / mechanism which could be applied "once" (i.e. only one time, even if over a few doses spaced out in time) that would not present any population effects after 1y / 1billion people that would then proceed to be even within one order of magnitude as deadly as COVID. Hell, two or three even...
      - effie 5y ago
        1) Prions: kuru has asymptomatic incubation period 10-13 years; 2) various carcinogens, it takes time for the cancer to develop.
blitz_skull 5y ago
I’m not worried about the immediate side effects. I’m 25. I’m worried about the side effects that don’t show for 20+ years. I’ve gotten COVID so I don’t feel like I need the vaccine. I have a REAL problem with mandatory vaccination for a virus I’ve already gotten and would gladly contract again if it means I get to retain my agency.
- DanHulton 5y ago
  But you're not worried about the side effects of COVID that will develop over 20+ years? It's not like COVID is any safer or well-understood. This is a false dichotomy.
  - blitz_skull 5y ago
    I never said I wasn’t worried about the side effects of getting COVID in 20 years. I didn’t have a choice to get COVID, I DO have a choice to not get the vaccine.
    - effie 5y ago
      Exactly, somehow this simple fact eludes many vaccinators on HN.
  - artursapek 5y ago
    COVID doesn’t get to bypass all safety barriers in your body
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      It does, that's why it's making people sick and in many cases dead.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- avalys 5y ago
  You already got COVID, so you're already stuck with whatever long-term side effects there are from COVID infection and probably have some immunity already, so I understand your desire to not take additional risk by getting the vaccine. But for someone who has not yet had COVID, why would you suggest they should be uniquely concerned about hypothetical unknown long-term side effects from the vaccine, and not COVID itself?
ren_engineer 5y ago
Interesting study from Carnegie Mellon and Pitt found that the most vaccine "hesitant" group are people with PhDs and they are the only group that has actually increased in hesitancy to get the shot over the last few months https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/covid-hesitancy.html https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/cov...
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Hah, guess who can't read properly... No, their hesitancy didn't increase, every other group's decreased, making the hesitancy percentage among PhDs (since it remained mostly constant) to be the highest by May. To put it in 5th grader terms, if Alan had $30, Beth had $20 and Charlie had $15 at the beginning of the year, and Alan"s and Beth's savings decreased to $13 and $5 but Charlie's only decreased to $14 by May, Charlie is now the richest of the group.
- georgeburdell 5y ago
  You're going to get downvoted into oblivion but as a PhD, who has also worked in manufacturing, I have a number of reasons to remain skeptical about the vaccines. I won't repeat them here because everyone has pretty much made up their mind one way or the other. For what it's worth, I did end up getting vaccinated recently (J&J, not mRNA-based) after quite a few unpleasant conversations with my spouse that I was endangering our children on the presumption that unvaccinated people more easily spread the virus. This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar (among people tested). Consequently, I'm just staying home these days. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
  - ajross 5y ago
    > This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar I'm a little horrified that you cite your academic credentials and then misread that conclusion so badly. Viral load and infectiousness are equivalent between vaccinated and unvaccinated INFECTED PEOPLE in that study, not overall. The vaccinated are, obviously, much less likely to get sick in the first place. Your wife was right and you were wrong, basically.
BobJackienine 5y ago
You won't hear about it unless you had problems like I did after I did all kinds of people telling me same.

Overton-Window 5y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah I know there are side effects for many people. For me the second time it felt a bit like I ran into a door handle at the spot where I got the jab. Like a minor bruise. That was all. But this is anecdotal of course. Some people will get it worse. They always said side effects would be possible for some people. There's also a reason we all have to wait 15 minutes before leaving. The possible allergy is another anticipated side-effect. If these were serious and common however, really the hospitals would be so busy by now taking care of all of them. The number of people that got the vaccine here in europe in the space of the last few months is enormous. We started much later than the US but have caught up in a really short time. And with the exception of the UK most countries have used mostly mRNA types and very little AstraZeneca. As a result we had (and probably still have) higher numbers going through vaccination per month than the US. Even the tiniest percentage of serious complications would have been flooding the hospitals which were already at high pressure due to covid.
mc32 5y ago
Like any other vaccine, I weighed the risk vs benefit and took the odds and got vaccinated. I'm for vaccination. I'm not for forcing vaccines upon a population who are hesitant for their own reasons for something that so far, is a relatively mid-level virus. If this were the plague, I'd want more stringent enforcement, given the same vaccine odds. That said, I hope Twitter et al don't knee jerk react-to this and block discussion just because it would counter their preferred narrative.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I remember quite a few SARS and swine-flu scares over the past few decades - the disease would be quite destructive but small in scale. We aren't at "bring out your dead" levels yet but we have been living primarily in lockdowns for the past year and a half. If this doesn't qualify as a plague we should take seriously and address I'm rather afraid what would actually reach that level for you.
  - grillvogel 5y ago
    if covid was truly frightening we wouldn't need government mandates forcing people to take it seriously
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      People aren't good at estimating danger that's indirect. I can provide examples.
- timeon 5y ago
  > Like any other vaccine or drugs in general. Just look at adverse effects of Ibuprofen. Common drug, but unlike vaccines, it is not used for whole population at once. So adverse effects even if more common are not that visible.

lixtra 5y ago

Some effects may take a long time to develop. Not related but a very slow biological process (prions): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27982991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27982991

BurningFrog 5y ago
You can always make a "you never know, something completely unforeseen may happe", and you will be right. Of course, people tend to only make those arguments for things they don't really want to be done.
- artursapek 5y ago
  Not really. This has been the argument against pesticides and GMO foods for years, and it’s completely valid in hindsight.
  - yongjik 5y ago
    GMO is a good example why such concerns are not always right. (See also: cell phone radiation.)
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Are pesticides and GMO foods - two things which are reapplied on a frequent basis, relatively speaking - actually comparable to an instance in time where someone received one or two shots once? I think the most famous/deadly instances of drugs having side effects which discovered after mass deployment have generally been for medicines one ingests continuously, no? I, as an untrained and uneducated individual, find it almost impossible to imagine a drug / technology / mechanism which could be applied "once" (i.e. only one time, even if over a few doses spaced out in time) that would not present any population effects after 1y / 1billion people that would then proceed to be even within one order of magnitude as deadly as COVID. Hell, two or three even...
    - effie 5y ago
      1) Prions: kuru has asymptomatic incubation period 10-13 years; 2) various carcinogens, it takes time for the cancer to develop.

blitz_skull 5y ago

I’m not worried about the immediate side effects. I’m 25. I’m worried about the side effects that don’t show for 20+ years. I’ve gotten COVID so I don’t feel like I need the vaccine. I have a REAL problem with mandatory vaccination for a virus I’ve already gotten and would gladly contract again if it means I get to retain my agency.

DanHulton 5y ago
But you're not worried about the side effects of COVID that will develop over 20+ years? It's not like COVID is any safer or well-understood. This is a false dichotomy.
- blitz_skull 5y ago
  I never said I wasn’t worried about the side effects of getting COVID in 20 years. I didn’t have a choice to get COVID, I DO have a choice to not get the vaccine.
  - effie 5y ago
    Exactly, somehow this simple fact eludes many vaccinators on HN.
- artursapek 5y ago
  COVID doesn’t get to bypass all safety barriers in your body
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    It does, that's why it's making people sick and in many cases dead.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
avalys 5y ago
You already got COVID, so you're already stuck with whatever long-term side effects there are from COVID infection and probably have some immunity already, so I understand your desire to not take additional risk by getting the vaccine. But for someone who has not yet had COVID, why would you suggest they should be uniquely concerned about hypothetical unknown long-term side effects from the vaccine, and not COVID itself?

ren_engineer 5y ago

Interesting study from Carnegie Mellon and Pitt found that the most vaccine "hesitant" group are people with PhDs and they are the only group that has actually increased in hesitancy to get the shot over the last few months https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/covid-hesitancy.html https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/cov...

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Hah, guess who can't read properly... No, their hesitancy didn't increase, every other group's decreased, making the hesitancy percentage among PhDs (since it remained mostly constant) to be the highest by May. To put it in 5th grader terms, if Alan had $30, Beth had $20 and Charlie had $15 at the beginning of the year, and Alan"s and Beth's savings decreased to $13 and $5 but Charlie's only decreased to $14 by May, Charlie is now the richest of the group.
georgeburdell 5y ago
You're going to get downvoted into oblivion but as a PhD, who has also worked in manufacturing, I have a number of reasons to remain skeptical about the vaccines. I won't repeat them here because everyone has pretty much made up their mind one way or the other. For what it's worth, I did end up getting vaccinated recently (J&J, not mRNA-based) after quite a few unpleasant conversations with my spouse that I was endangering our children on the presumption that unvaccinated people more easily spread the virus. This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar (among people tested). Consequently, I'm just staying home these days. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
- ajross 5y ago
  > This assertion has been thrown into doubt, however, by the CDC's Barnstable study [1] suggesting viral numbers between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar I'm a little horrified that you cite your academic credentials and then misread that conclusion so badly. Viral load and infectiousness are equivalent between vaccinated and unvaccinated INFECTED PEOPLE in that study, not overall. The vaccinated are, obviously, much less likely to get sick in the first place. Your wife was right and you were wrong, basically.

BobJackienine 5y ago

You won't hear about it unless you had problems like I did after I did all kinds of people telling me same.