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I don't understand this attitude. Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Same as masks. It's not "pointless" at all, it'

by sho 5y ago

I don't understand this attitude. Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Same as masks. It's not "pointless" at all, it's a government taking totally reasonable measures to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number. Nothing is ever going to be 100% safe, but to not take obvious measures to increase safety is negligent. I just have no sympathy for the anti-vaccine crowd and their wilful ignorance and bad faith arguments. Fine, it's your right to not get vaccinated. It's everyone else's right to prevent your recalcitrant ass from affecting others with your ridiculous theories and bad decision-making.

ghiculescu 5y ago
I think it was a reasonable question, which I read as: If I am vaccinated, and you are not, what do I gain from forcing you to get vaccinated? I am equally highly protected either way, right?
- sho 5y ago
  No, you are not. If I am not vaccinated I am far more likely to carry the virus to you, and your vaccine, while good, is not 100% protection. So you have a significant decrease in your risk by forcing me to be vaccinated.
  - sleavey 5y ago
    Do we apply this thinking to any other public health threats? Smoking for example, particularly for those forced to be around smokers like their children? I'm curious to hear the arguments for why this virus needs to be treated differently to all others that have come before, and to other public health issues. Not trying to start a fight here. I just haven't been convinced yet why our old behaviour towards threats like CoV-2 doesn't apply to it itself.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      Can you give some examples?
    - bart_spoon 5y ago
      We do apply the same logic. You can choose to be a smoker, but you can’t choose to be one in certain public spaces, including airplanes and trains. This type of mandate is no different. You can still choose to be a non-vaccinated individual, but not in particular areas.
      - sleavey 5y ago
        I did mention in my comment above that children of smokers don't have a choice being around second hand smoke. Yet most governments consider the harm to the health of the child to be less critical than the smoker's individual freedom to smoke. I'm not some freedom loving libertarian, I'm normally quite left leaning, but the dual standards I see applied by governments here really bother me. I can't help but think their response was driven more by fear than sense.
        bart_spoon 5y ago
        No one is taking away the children of anti-vaxxers, they are saying you can’t use public transportation. The same principle is at play: you can live you life in a way that negatively impacts the health of your children, because you have authority over your children. But when it becomes a threat to others that aren’t in your stewardship, you no longer have that freedom. What is the double standard here? You aren’t even comparing the same situations.
        sleavey 5y ago
        > You aren’t even comparing the same situations. We've gotten quite far from the original point; I'll reply once more but probably not again on this branch because we seem to have a fundamental disagreement over whether governments should have the right to mandate (either de-jour or de-facto) medical interventions on people in return for the ability to take part in society. Governments can't mandate for every eventuality, they have to make policies covering broad areas. We're discussing public health policy here, i.e. the ways in which governments can reduce harmful effects on the health of the populace through rules and regulations. My point was that if governments truly cared about public health, they would have already for example banned smoking universally (or at least in situations where there is another person within X meters of the smoker), since second hand smoke is a demonstrable cause of premature death. The justification would be one of public health. And if anything, such a policy would be even less controversial than mandating vaccines because a smoker can simply stop smoking temporarily to be around other people whereas people cannot stop breathing and therefore potentially spreading viruses. Yet it seems governments have skipped over all of these easier public health issues, and gone straight to mandating that people get vaccinated to enter publicly funded places from a public health justification. To me, regardless of how effective or not these mandates have been and are, I smell bullshit when I hear governments justifying such rules with public health arguments because they have not from their previous actions demonstrated that they are merely following through with their public health manifesto. I rather fear they're mandating vaccines to enter public spaces because the public demanded something be done. Governments in representative democracies aren't doing their job if they do merely that which the public want; they are supposed to lead even if the majority of the public disagree.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      > Do we apply this thinking to any other public health threats? Smoking for example, particularly for those forced to be around smokers like their children? Yes, of course. Most developed countries ban indoor smoking in most or all places outside the home.
  - ghiculescu 5y ago
    I think the slippery slope argument this creates is what is frightening a lot of people.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jollybean 5y ago
  Yes, you can let the others do the work and often be just as well off. Society is a giant prisoner's dilemma (or more like 'grifers dilemma') like that. That's why vaxxes are not like seatbelts, i.e. just affecting the user, they affect everyone. We take vaccines to protect others as much as we do ourselves, because if we act responsibly then things will work out, but nearly everyone needs to participate. In this case it's a little bit like 'positive responsibilities'. Normally, we could say 'don't steal' and that would be enough, but in this case it leans towards 'get your vax' i.e. an active action. It's not as black and white, it's reasonable to have conscientious and other objectors. And of course I don't think 'requirements' are necessary unless specific health concerns. But on the whole, by and large, we need to get vaxxed here i.e. we need enough civic participants to move the situation forward so that the various kinds of objectors can survive so as to maintain their right to object, ironically.
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  No you aren’t. A vaccine isn’t 100% effective. So say it prevents 9/10 COVID infections. If you are in an area where your normal probability of encountering an infectious level of virus is say 1/100, then your chances are 1/1000 of catching COVID. But if your local level of transmission is higher, so that your chance of contracting COVID over some time horizon is say 1/10, then your chances of getting ill is now 1/100. And this all assumes that the vaccination works equally well for everyone. The effectiveness rates are and average. There will be people for whom it is highly effective, and others who get the vaccine who don’t get much protection at all. It also ignores the reality of mutation rates. Mutations will happen no matter what, but the rate at which they occur is dependent on how many people are getting sick. So even if a vaccine offers protection now, if half the population is not vaccinated, and the virus is raging amongst them, then the chances of the virus developing a mutation that increases severity, or evades existing vaccine immunity, is much higher. So the reality is that no, being protected is not a simple matter of an individual choosing to or not to get vaccinated. It’s community based. This isn’t unique for COVID either. It’s been true for every disease we’ve ever vaccinated against.
  - daenz 5y ago
    It's disturbing to me that depending on what argument is being made, the vaccines are both highly effective and simultaneously not effective enough. It doesn't get to be both when it's convenient.
    - bart_spoon 5y ago
      Why is it disturbing? Can both not be true?
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Both those things are true, though. In fact, both are true of most vaccines that are actually in use; perfect vaccines are rare.
      - daenz 5y ago
        Please explain how something "is X" and "is not X" at the same time, without changing the definition of X between assertions, and without referring to quantum superposition.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Vaccine effectiveness goes up the more people have them. So let’s say a vaccine confers 60% immunity (not what the actual vaccines provide, whose numbers are much more complicated), that is basically friction that slows the virus’s spread around. Now, if almost everyone is vaccinated, that friction is enough for the virus to fizzle out and the pandemic to end. If only a few people are vaccinated, then the virus still has a lot of friction free hosts to infect, and because it is thriving, it can even mutate faster to get around the vaccine’s friction. Think of the vaccine as a collective attempt to stop the virus, not as a personal attempt. The more people are vaccinated, the higher chance this pandemic will end and we can get back to normal. Anti vaxxers are extremely annoying here. Also, hopefully the vaccine is approved for children soon.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Having survived Covid is better than some vaccines; forcing people to then pay Pharma companies is kind of a funny response, especially when there are still many people in the world that are under lockdown that want vaccines, you can easily argue it is not ethical.
carthusian 5y ago
>Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Not if ADE happens with future strains, and the evidence is mounting that it will.
- nojs 5y ago
  Can you share some of the mounting evidence?
  - carthusian 5y ago
    Mutations of the RBD that evade vaccinal immunity (which was long known): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.013 Feasibility argument based on molecular modelling: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.010 Infection-enhancing antibody pathways exist: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.021
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  If ADE happens with future strains, then it won’t matter if you are vaccinated or not, because unvaccinated individuals are absolutely guaranteed to get Covid eventually. Covid is never going away at this point, and it’s transmission levels are as high as just about any disease we’ve encountered. Short of completely retreating from society and building a survival bunker in the woods, you won’t escape ADE if it becomes an issue, so it’s not a valid argument against vaccination. If anything it is an argument for vaccination, since a highly vaccinated population will reduce the rate of mutation.
  - carthusian 5y ago
    Natural immunity (which I already have) provides a much more generic defense because it targets all parts of the spike protein, and presumably other parts of the virus itself, many of which hardly mutate. Vaccinal immunity targets only the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. The RBD is, in fact, the most rapidly mutating part of the virus. Therefore it is highly feasible that ADE will only affect the vaccinated and not those with natural immunity. So, yes, it is a valid argument against vaccination. >If anything it is an argument for vaccination, since a highly vaccinated population will reduce the rate of mutation. If the vaccine were known to be highly neutralizing, this would be a good point. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case, though I admit it is still somewhat uncertain. If the vaccine is non-neutralizing, then, on the contrary, I expect a highly vaccinated population to increase the rate of immune-escaping mutation.
ghoward 5y ago
> I don't understand this attitude. Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Same as masks. This is only true for both if there are no side effects to doing either of them. If there are side effects, and there are, then it is not that simple. I don't know why, but with COVID, people seem to have conveniently forgotten that in science, all factors matter. [1] [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/in-science-all-factors-matter/ https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/in-science-all-factors-matte...

by sho 5y ago

ghiculescu 5y ago

I think it was a reasonable question, which I read as: If I am vaccinated, and you are not, what do I gain from forcing you to get vaccinated? I am equally highly protected either way, right?

sho 5y ago
No, you are not. If I am not vaccinated I am far more likely to carry the virus to you, and your vaccine, while good, is not 100% protection. So you have a significant decrease in your risk by forcing me to be vaccinated.
- sleavey 5y ago
  Do we apply this thinking to any other public health threats? Smoking for example, particularly for those forced to be around smokers like their children? I'm curious to hear the arguments for why this virus needs to be treated differently to all others that have come before, and to other public health issues. Not trying to start a fight here. I just haven't been convinced yet why our old behaviour towards threats like CoV-2 doesn't apply to it itself.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Can you give some examples?
  - bart_spoon 5y ago
    We do apply the same logic. You can choose to be a smoker, but you can’t choose to be one in certain public spaces, including airplanes and trains. This type of mandate is no different. You can still choose to be a non-vaccinated individual, but not in particular areas.
    - sleavey 5y ago
      I did mention in my comment above that children of smokers don't have a choice being around second hand smoke. Yet most governments consider the harm to the health of the child to be less critical than the smoker's individual freedom to smoke. I'm not some freedom loving libertarian, I'm normally quite left leaning, but the dual standards I see applied by governments here really bother me. I can't help but think their response was driven more by fear than sense.
      - bart_spoon 5y ago
        No one is taking away the children of anti-vaxxers, they are saying you can’t use public transportation. The same principle is at play: you can live you life in a way that negatively impacts the health of your children, because you have authority over your children. But when it becomes a threat to others that aren’t in your stewardship, you no longer have that freedom. What is the double standard here? You aren’t even comparing the same situations.
        sleavey 5y ago
        > You aren’t even comparing the same situations. We've gotten quite far from the original point; I'll reply once more but probably not again on this branch because we seem to have a fundamental disagreement over whether governments should have the right to mandate (either de-jour or de-facto) medical interventions on people in return for the ability to take part in society. Governments can't mandate for every eventuality, they have to make policies covering broad areas. We're discussing public health policy here, i.e. the ways in which governments can reduce harmful effects on the health of the populace through rules and regulations. My point was that if governments truly cared about public health, they would have already for example banned smoking universally (or at least in situations where there is another person within X meters of the smoker), since second hand smoke is a demonstrable cause of premature death. The justification would be one of public health. And if anything, such a policy would be even less controversial than mandating vaccines because a smoker can simply stop smoking temporarily to be around other people whereas people cannot stop breathing and therefore potentially spreading viruses. Yet it seems governments have skipped over all of these easier public health issues, and gone straight to mandating that people get vaccinated to enter publicly funded places from a public health justification. To me, regardless of how effective or not these mandates have been and are, I smell bullshit when I hear governments justifying such rules with public health arguments because they have not from their previous actions demonstrated that they are merely following through with their public health manifesto. I rather fear they're mandating vaccines to enter public spaces because the public demanded something be done. Governments in representative democracies aren't doing their job if they do merely that which the public want; they are supposed to lead even if the majority of the public disagree.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    > Do we apply this thinking to any other public health threats? Smoking for example, particularly for those forced to be around smokers like their children? Yes, of course. Most developed countries ban indoor smoking in most or all places outside the home.
- ghiculescu 5y ago
  I think the slippery slope argument this creates is what is frightening a lot of people.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jollybean 5y ago
Yes, you can let the others do the work and often be just as well off. Society is a giant prisoner's dilemma (or more like 'grifers dilemma') like that. That's why vaxxes are not like seatbelts, i.e. just affecting the user, they affect everyone. We take vaccines to protect others as much as we do ourselves, because if we act responsibly then things will work out, but nearly everyone needs to participate. In this case it's a little bit like 'positive responsibilities'. Normally, we could say 'don't steal' and that would be enough, but in this case it leans towards 'get your vax' i.e. an active action. It's not as black and white, it's reasonable to have conscientious and other objectors. And of course I don't think 'requirements' are necessary unless specific health concerns. But on the whole, by and large, we need to get vaxxed here i.e. we need enough civic participants to move the situation forward so that the various kinds of objectors can survive so as to maintain their right to object, ironically.
bart_spoon 5y ago
No you aren’t. A vaccine isn’t 100% effective. So say it prevents 9/10 COVID infections. If you are in an area where your normal probability of encountering an infectious level of virus is say 1/100, then your chances are 1/1000 of catching COVID. But if your local level of transmission is higher, so that your chance of contracting COVID over some time horizon is say 1/10, then your chances of getting ill is now 1/100. And this all assumes that the vaccination works equally well for everyone. The effectiveness rates are and average. There will be people for whom it is highly effective, and others who get the vaccine who don’t get much protection at all. It also ignores the reality of mutation rates. Mutations will happen no matter what, but the rate at which they occur is dependent on how many people are getting sick. So even if a vaccine offers protection now, if half the population is not vaccinated, and the virus is raging amongst them, then the chances of the virus developing a mutation that increases severity, or evades existing vaccine immunity, is much higher. So the reality is that no, being protected is not a simple matter of an individual choosing to or not to get vaccinated. It’s community based. This isn’t unique for COVID either. It’s been true for every disease we’ve ever vaccinated against.
- daenz 5y ago
  It's disturbing to me that depending on what argument is being made, the vaccines are both highly effective and simultaneously not effective enough. It doesn't get to be both when it's convenient.
  - bart_spoon 5y ago
    Why is it disturbing? Can both not be true?
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Both those things are true, though. In fact, both are true of most vaccines that are actually in use; perfect vaccines are rare.
    - daenz 5y ago
      Please explain how something "is X" and "is not X" at the same time, without changing the definition of X between assertions, and without referring to quantum superposition.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Vaccine effectiveness goes up the more people have them. So let’s say a vaccine confers 60% immunity (not what the actual vaccines provide, whose numbers are much more complicated), that is basically friction that slows the virus’s spread around. Now, if almost everyone is vaccinated, that friction is enough for the virus to fizzle out and the pandemic to end. If only a few people are vaccinated, then the virus still has a lot of friction free hosts to infect, and because it is thriving, it can even mutate faster to get around the vaccine’s friction. Think of the vaccine as a collective attempt to stop the virus, not as a personal attempt. The more people are vaccinated, the higher chance this pandemic will end and we can get back to normal. Anti vaxxers are extremely annoying here. Also, hopefully the vaccine is approved for children soon.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Having survived Covid is better than some vaccines; forcing people to then pay Pharma companies is kind of a funny response, especially when there are still many people in the world that are under lockdown that want vaccines, you can easily argue it is not ethical.

carthusian 5y ago

>Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Not if ADE happens with future strains, and the evidence is mounting that it will.

nojs 5y ago
Can you share some of the mounting evidence?
- carthusian 5y ago
  Mutations of the RBD that evade vaccinal immunity (which was long known): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.013 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.013 Feasibility argument based on molecular modelling: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.010 Infection-enhancing antibody pathways exist: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.021
bart_spoon 5y ago
If ADE happens with future strains, then it won’t matter if you are vaccinated or not, because unvaccinated individuals are absolutely guaranteed to get Covid eventually. Covid is never going away at this point, and it’s transmission levels are as high as just about any disease we’ve encountered. Short of completely retreating from society and building a survival bunker in the woods, you won’t escape ADE if it becomes an issue, so it’s not a valid argument against vaccination. If anything it is an argument for vaccination, since a highly vaccinated population will reduce the rate of mutation.
- carthusian 5y ago
  Natural immunity (which I already have) provides a much more generic defense because it targets all parts of the spike protein, and presumably other parts of the virus itself, many of which hardly mutate. Vaccinal immunity targets only the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein. The RBD is, in fact, the most rapidly mutating part of the virus. Therefore it is highly feasible that ADE will only affect the vaccinated and not those with natural immunity. So, yes, it is a valid argument against vaccination. >If anything it is an argument for vaccination, since a highly vaccinated population will reduce the rate of mutation. If the vaccine were known to be highly neutralizing, this would be a good point. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case, though I admit it is still somewhat uncertain. If the vaccine is non-neutralizing, then, on the contrary, I expect a highly vaccinated population to increase the rate of immune-escaping mutation.

ghoward 5y ago

> I don't understand this attitude. Yes vaccines aren't 100% perfct but they are a whole lot better than nothing. Same as masks. This is only true for both if there are no side effects to doing either of them. If there are side effects, and there are, then it is not that simple. I don't know why, but with COVID, people seem to have conveniently forgotten that in science, all factors matter. [1] [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/in-science-all-factors-matter/ https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/in-science-all-factors-matte...