5 ms·

It’s not weird. Vaccine mandates for covid are demanding people make health decisions they haven’t bought into. It’s not like covid is polio. The risk models

by asguy 5y ago

It’s not weird. Vaccine mandates for covid are demanding people make health decisions they haven’t bought into. It’s not like covid is polio. The risk models are different. I had covid, it was like a really bad flu. I got vaccinated because I wanted to travel, and the adenovirus vector didn’t seem that risky. Why would I push that choice on someone else given what I know first-hand of the disease?

lsaferite 5y ago
> I had covid, it was like a really bad flu This is not the only outcome of getting COVID-19.
- asguy 5y ago
  What outcome should I be looking out for?
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    You had a ~3% chance of dying and a much larger chance of having lasting debilitating symptoms. Everyone you infected while having transmissible COVID faced the same odds. If you infected 100 people, it’s likely 3 people would die.
  - m-p-3 5y ago
    List of potentially permanent post COVID symptoms * fatigue * memory problems sleep disturbances shortness of breath * anxiety and depression * general pain and discomfort difficulty thinking or concentrating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/symptoms/post-covid-19-condition.html#s https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/201... An example of an otherwise healthy person in excellent shape who is likely to have to face a career-ending post COVID life: https://nationalpost.com/news/an-anti-vaxxer-edmonton-oiler-got-covid-and-now-his-hockey-career-might-be-over https://nationalpost.com/news/an-anti-vaxxer-edmonton-oiler-...
    - asguy 5y ago
      That sounds like the side-effect list of some major prescription medications. I am thankful I have none of that.
gdavisson 5y ago
> It’s not like covid is polio. You're right, it's not like polio. In 1952, the worst polio outbreak in US history caused 3,145 deaths and 21,269 cases of paralysis (of varying levels) (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polio#Epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polio#Epidemics). In the last roughly-year-and-a-half, COVID-19 has caused 716,370 reported deaths (ref: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100k..., but it'll probably be higher by the time you check). So COVID has been killing people at over 100x the rate of polio at its worst. Also, polio didn't overload the capacity of the healthcare system the same way COVID keeps doing. This causes consequences for people without COVID who need access to healthcare. >I had covid, it was like a really bad flu. COVID has highly variable symptoms; taking your particular experience as typical is a mistake. In a lot of cases, COVID is asymptomatic. In another lot, it's roughly like yours. In a smaller, but still significant fraction, it's much more serious, involving hospitalization. (Also, something like half of symptomatic cases involve ongoing "long COVID" symptoms.) In an even smaller, but again still significant (see above) fraction, it's fatal.
- asguy 5y ago
  The point I think you missed in that comparison is the risk analysis: polio has scary implications that are directly in front of you. So do things like ebola, HIV, etc. People can understand them. When your everyman sees 99% of people doing fine pre-and-post covid, you can't ask them to have the same fear of the disease. It's unreasonable for you to to do so.
  - gdavisson 5y ago
    The risk of death if you get polio is much higher than COVID, but the probability of getting COVID is much much higher than it was of getting polio. This makes the overall current risk if dying from COVID roughly 100x the overall risk of dying from polio was in 1952. I realize that, psychologically, a low-probability-high-risk event can seem scarier than a high-probability-lower-risk event, but is it really unreasonable of me to expect people to also be able to make rational assessments of overall danger? Do you really think we're complete slaves to our psychological biases?
WillSlim95 5y ago
Because what you know first hand of the disease is useless for others. My 54 year old uncle had COVID. He was just in the hospital for 5 days and came back no different from before COVID. My 29 year old friend spent 2 weeks ventilated in ICU and dying of multi organ failure The symptoms of COVID 19 are not always flu like. It is a spectrum of symptoms which is not yet understood why it expresses in different bodies differently. During the Second wave in India a lot of my friends and acquaintances got it and their symptoms were all over the place. Some had diarrhea like symptoms, some had no visible symptoms at all, some simply lost the ability to smell and became physically weak. Knowing this information, trying to be safe from COVID by catching it is no less than playing Russian roulette and it makes choosing to take a vaccine no brainer.
- asguy 5y ago
  Were your examples vaccinated? This thread is talking about having issues with /others/ not being vaccinated. My point stands: if the vaccine works, why am I (a vaccinated person) worried about what someone else does? I can keep taking boosters, keep wearing masks, keep trying to stay healthy. That has nothing to do with people (who are not me) doing whatever they want with their situation.
  - WillSlim95 5y ago
    As for my examples, they were hit by COVID a month before vaccines were made available to them Vaccines work when a significant part of the population has them, if workplaces and schools can institute vaccine mandates against diseases like Diphtheria, Measles, Rubella etc. Why should a disease much more infectious than them not get a mandate? For a stark example see this thread https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/571113104920027136?t=rH-x1K_PcdNUkw-91BAX3Q&s=19 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/571113104920027136?t=r... If someone has access to the vaccine in their area and have not taken it yet for any reason other than a medical reason should really do some proper "research" and get it ASAP. As a vaccinated person, why you should care or not other people get vaccinated or not? 1. Less reservoirs for viruses to mutate into more harmful strains. 2. There are people who are immunocompromised , who cannot take vaccines . They are protected by those who are healthy and have been vaccinated. 3. >90% of all recent COVID deaths in the US have been of unvaccinated persons. A non trivial percent of the vaccinated dead by COVID were immunocompromised who were infected by unvaccinated folks. If these reasons cannot convince you, I don't know what can.

by asguy 5y ago

lsaferite 5y ago

> I had covid, it was like a really bad flu This is not the only outcome of getting COVID-19.

asguy 5y ago
What outcome should I be looking out for?
- rbanffy 5y ago
  You had a ~3% chance of dying and a much larger chance of having lasting debilitating symptoms. Everyone you infected while having transmissible COVID faced the same odds. If you infected 100 people, it’s likely 3 people would die.
- m-p-3 5y ago
  List of potentially permanent post COVID symptoms * fatigue * memory problems sleep disturbances shortness of breath * anxiety and depression * general pain and discomfort difficulty thinking or concentrating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/symptoms/post-covid-19-condition.html#s https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/201... An example of an otherwise healthy person in excellent shape who is likely to have to face a career-ending post COVID life: https://nationalpost.com/news/an-anti-vaxxer-edmonton-oiler-got-covid-and-now-his-hockey-career-might-be-over https://nationalpost.com/news/an-anti-vaxxer-edmonton-oiler-...
  - asguy 5y ago
    That sounds like the side-effect list of some major prescription medications. I am thankful I have none of that.

gdavisson 5y ago

> It’s not like covid is polio. You're right, it's not like polio. In 1952, the worst polio outbreak in US history caused 3,145 deaths and 21,269 cases of paralysis (of varying levels) (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polio#Epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polio#Epidemics). In the last roughly-year-and-a-half, COVID-19 has caused 716,370 reported deaths (ref: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100k..., but it'll probably be higher by the time you check). So COVID has been killing people at over 100x the rate of polio at its worst. Also, polio didn't overload the capacity of the healthcare system the same way COVID keeps doing. This causes consequences for people without COVID who need access to healthcare. >I had covid, it was like a really bad flu. COVID has highly variable symptoms; taking your particular experience as typical is a mistake. In a lot of cases, COVID is asymptomatic. In another lot, it's roughly like yours. In a smaller, but still significant fraction, it's much more serious, involving hospitalization. (Also, something like half of symptomatic cases involve ongoing "long COVID" symptoms.) In an even smaller, but again still significant (see above) fraction, it's fatal.

asguy 5y ago
The point I think you missed in that comparison is the risk analysis: polio has scary implications that are directly in front of you. So do things like ebola, HIV, etc. People can understand them. When your everyman sees 99% of people doing fine pre-and-post covid, you can't ask them to have the same fear of the disease. It's unreasonable for you to to do so.
- gdavisson 5y ago
  The risk of death if you get polio is much higher than COVID, but the probability of getting COVID is much much higher than it was of getting polio. This makes the overall current risk if dying from COVID roughly 100x the overall risk of dying from polio was in 1952. I realize that, psychologically, a low-probability-high-risk event can seem scarier than a high-probability-lower-risk event, but is it really unreasonable of me to expect people to also be able to make rational assessments of overall danger? Do you really think we're complete slaves to our psychological biases?

WillSlim95 5y ago

Because what you know first hand of the disease is useless for others. My 54 year old uncle had COVID. He was just in the hospital for 5 days and came back no different from before COVID. My 29 year old friend spent 2 weeks ventilated in ICU and dying of multi organ failure The symptoms of COVID 19 are not always flu like. It is a spectrum of symptoms which is not yet understood why it expresses in different bodies differently. During the Second wave in India a lot of my friends and acquaintances got it and their symptoms were all over the place. Some had diarrhea like symptoms, some had no visible symptoms at all, some simply lost the ability to smell and became physically weak. Knowing this information, trying to be safe from COVID by catching it is no less than playing Russian roulette and it makes choosing to take a vaccine no brainer.

asguy 5y ago
Were your examples vaccinated? This thread is talking about having issues with /others/ not being vaccinated. My point stands: if the vaccine works, why am I (a vaccinated person) worried about what someone else does? I can keep taking boosters, keep wearing masks, keep trying to stay healthy. That has nothing to do with people (who are not me) doing whatever they want with their situation.
- WillSlim95 5y ago
  As for my examples, they were hit by COVID a month before vaccines were made available to them Vaccines work when a significant part of the population has them, if workplaces and schools can institute vaccine mandates against diseases like Diphtheria, Measles, Rubella etc. Why should a disease much more infectious than them not get a mandate? For a stark example see this thread https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/571113104920027136?t=rH-x1K_PcdNUkw-91BAX3Q&s=19 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/571113104920027136?t=r... If someone has access to the vaccine in their area and have not taken it yet for any reason other than a medical reason should really do some proper "research" and get it ASAP. As a vaccinated person, why you should care or not other people get vaccinated or not? 1. Less reservoirs for viruses to mutate into more harmful strains. 2. There are people who are immunocompromised , who cannot take vaccines . They are protected by those who are healthy and have been vaccinated. 3. >90% of all recent COVID deaths in the US have been of unvaccinated persons. A non trivial percent of the vaccinated dead by COVID were immunocompromised who were infected by unvaccinated folks. If these reasons cannot convince you, I don't know what can.