4 ms·

I think the “why take chances” logic can be applied in multiple ways though. The risks from COVID are incredibly low for the young and healthy, and even lower i

I think the “why take chances” logic can be applied in multiple ways though. The risks from COVID are incredibly low for the young and healthy, and even lower if you consider just those with balanced diets (without VDD). It’s difficult to compare the tradeoffs between multiple competing low risk choices. Why take chances with a new vaccine that could prove to have some long term effect? Why take chances with shutting down schools and impacting children for a lifetime? Why take chances with the lower oxygen and breathing difficulties of masks? And so on. It makes more sense for individuals to evaluate their risk tolerance and circumstances to decide which tradeoffs they are willing to take on.

manwe150 5y ago
That line of reasoning applies also to simply getting out of bed in the morning, or risking COVID illness without the proven safety benefits of the vaccines, both of which have known long-term side-effects. Whereas, if you are healthy, the vaccine has been abundantly proven to statistically make you more healthy, so what “trade-off” are you talking about?
- twofornone 5y ago
  >Whereas, if you are healthy, the vaccine has been abundantly proven to statistically make you more healthy This is emphatically false. Immunity to a specific virus does not make a person healthier and the vaccines do have a documented risk of side effects, in addition to rapidly mounting evidence of poor efficacy. People seem to be worshipping these vaccines as some sort of mystical religious artifacts at this point. The vaccines do not come without a cost. This is a dangerous myth, even if you think the risks are low.
  - manwe150 5y ago
    If a mystical religious artifact magically appeared that was measured to statistically make me less likely to fall sick, I might go worship there too. That is sort of the point of science: finding whatever works best, whether that be my amulet, president Trump, or some chemical mixture. My definition of healthy is “less likely to become ill”. So far, and looking past any rhetoric, I have yet to find a source that shows vaccination to be more likely to cause illness, usually being a couple orders of magnitude safer. Do you have a source for me? Yes, but everything has a cost. That isn’t a myth, just economics. That doesn’t mean costs are bad.
    - twofornone 5y ago
      That's a contrived definition of "healthier". In any case >I might go worship there too Therein lies the issue. Worship of science is a vehicle for dogma. Even if the worship is implicit. Science is not beyond reproach, and to presume that laymen are unable to notice inconsistencies or holes in official doctrine is no better than forbidding peasants from reading or interpreting scripture. The same forces are at work, at a time when covid literature is freely available, but only one consensus is socially, morally acceptable. The science is far from settled; it cannot be so quickly after development of a new and complex technology. It took some 5 years before thalomide was found to cause birth defects. We just injected custom designed partial viral RNA into billions of people. To pretend vehemently that we've solved such a complex problem safely on the first try is hubris, and Pfizer et al are immune from legal liability, as negotiated with the US government. You think only tobacco and petroleum companies are capable of manipulating data and publishing misleading literature in pursuit of profits? They don't need to outright lie, just gradually massage their models and constantly adjust, and look at that, 2 years into this virus 2 weeks has turned, unironically, into 3 booster shots. There's no reason to blindly trust that these vaccines are safe long term. They'd have a tough time getting approved at all without emergency authorization given the current known side effects.
      - visarga 5y ago
        Nobody thinks Pandemic+Covid shots are better than no Pandemic+no shots. You got to weigh the hypothetical risk of the vaccine with the reported risk of Covid death. People take this decision thinking it's personal but it's not, it affects many others. Your 'personal' decision to assert medical sovereignty could kill another.
scotty79 5y ago
People are very bad at estimating risks using their gut feelings. They overestimate low probabilities and underestimating high. Did you know that polio is survivable in 99.8% of cases and asymptomatic in 92% (up to 99% by some estimates) of cases? So, was it worth inventing a vaccine for it? Or taking it? Risking long term effects? About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid. And if anyone read about mRNA technology for an afternoon it would be painfully obvious to them that whatever super long term effects covid vaccines might have, covid will virtually surely cause them as well, because mRNA vaccines don't do anything else than covid does. And don't fool yourself that you don't get covid. Unless you are planning to die of something else soon. I will not get covid is as silly as saying I won't get neither flu nor cold before I die, even asymptomatically. > It makes more sense for individuals to evaluate their risk tolerance and circumstances to decide which trade-offs they are willing to take on. No, it doesn't, because people actively avoid available knowledge in their personal risk estimations. So their estimation of both the risk and their willingness to take on risks is estimated wrong. Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I did read the recent discussion on HN around polio, and it does bring up some interesting questions as you’ve noted. But polio’s effects were more prevalent. The WHO says (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelit...) that 1 in 200 infected with polio experience irreversible paralysis (usually the legs), and 5-10% of those with paralysis die, meaning the IFR was 0.025%. The IFR for COVID-19 is incredibly low for those under 50, as most of the deaths impacted senior citizens. Even the CDC's conservative planning scenarios (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...) use a planning IFR for minors of 20 in 1M infections (0.002%) - which is an order of magnitude less than polio. A big part of what made polio’s vaccine acceptance easy was the graphic imagery of children being afflicted with a lifetime of paralysis. There was a certain psychological impact on society from that imagery. People evaluated the risks and decided they were better off going with the vaccine. Another boost for vaccine confidence was that the vaccines used approaches a that were already in wide use in other vaccines. > About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid. The risks of long term effects with COVID are very low, and their severity is very low, and in almost all cases those symptoms disappear. So why is your desire to contain one type of low risk any more important than others’ desire to contain other types of low risk? Regarding mRNA vaccines - I don’t think you are seeing things the way the vaccine hesitant are. The mRNA vaccine can have long term effects we don’t understand. Just because we are focused on its mechanism for efficacy doesn’t meant here aren’t other possible mechanisms involved that we haven’t understood yet. Likewise, we don’t know if any of the other vaccine ingredients will have long-term effects. The mRNA vaccine doses are not solely composed of mRNA material and lipids. And certainly we’ve seen numerous products - both medical and non-medical - banned decades after their initial introduction. The risks of that are low, but it’s nonzero. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but in case it helps make my points more acceptable, I am vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine as is my entire family. > Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations. I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up. This is the exact type of anecdotal risk estimation that you call out a few sentences earlier. I could equally say that the few people who experience severe vaccine side effects may also experience regret. Or that years down the road, it is possible that all those who received [some vaccine] will regret their choice if it is found to cause cancer or something else. The thing is, we don’t really know because we are dealing with the unknown. We don’t understand either the virus or the human body fully. For this and other reasons, I feel it is legitimate for people to choose their own risk profile based on their experiences and gut. I also don’t think anyone should be obligated to undergo a medical procedure like vaccination against their will, because bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty and because I don’t think here’s an obligation to have to take action to protect others against some third-party agent like a virus.

manwe150 5y ago

That line of reasoning applies also to simply getting out of bed in the morning, or risking COVID illness without the proven safety benefits of the vaccines, both of which have known long-term side-effects. Whereas, if you are healthy, the vaccine has been abundantly proven to statistically make you more healthy, so what “trade-off” are you talking about?

twofornone 5y ago
>Whereas, if you are healthy, the vaccine has been abundantly proven to statistically make you more healthy This is emphatically false. Immunity to a specific virus does not make a person healthier and the vaccines do have a documented risk of side effects, in addition to rapidly mounting evidence of poor efficacy. People seem to be worshipping these vaccines as some sort of mystical religious artifacts at this point. The vaccines do not come without a cost. This is a dangerous myth, even if you think the risks are low.
- manwe150 5y ago
  If a mystical religious artifact magically appeared that was measured to statistically make me less likely to fall sick, I might go worship there too. That is sort of the point of science: finding whatever works best, whether that be my amulet, president Trump, or some chemical mixture. My definition of healthy is “less likely to become ill”. So far, and looking past any rhetoric, I have yet to find a source that shows vaccination to be more likely to cause illness, usually being a couple orders of magnitude safer. Do you have a source for me? Yes, but everything has a cost. That isn’t a myth, just economics. That doesn’t mean costs are bad.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    That's a contrived definition of "healthier". In any case >I might go worship there too Therein lies the issue. Worship of science is a vehicle for dogma. Even if the worship is implicit. Science is not beyond reproach, and to presume that laymen are unable to notice inconsistencies or holes in official doctrine is no better than forbidding peasants from reading or interpreting scripture. The same forces are at work, at a time when covid literature is freely available, but only one consensus is socially, morally acceptable. The science is far from settled; it cannot be so quickly after development of a new and complex technology. It took some 5 years before thalomide was found to cause birth defects. We just injected custom designed partial viral RNA into billions of people. To pretend vehemently that we've solved such a complex problem safely on the first try is hubris, and Pfizer et al are immune from legal liability, as negotiated with the US government. You think only tobacco and petroleum companies are capable of manipulating data and publishing misleading literature in pursuit of profits? They don't need to outright lie, just gradually massage their models and constantly adjust, and look at that, 2 years into this virus 2 weeks has turned, unironically, into 3 booster shots. There's no reason to blindly trust that these vaccines are safe long term. They'd have a tough time getting approved at all without emergency authorization given the current known side effects.
    - visarga 5y ago
      Nobody thinks Pandemic+Covid shots are better than no Pandemic+no shots. You got to weigh the hypothetical risk of the vaccine with the reported risk of Covid death. People take this decision thinking it's personal but it's not, it affects many others. Your 'personal' decision to assert medical sovereignty could kill another.

scotty79 5y ago

People are very bad at estimating risks using their gut feelings. They overestimate low probabilities and underestimating high. Did you know that polio is survivable in 99.8% of cases and asymptomatic in 92% (up to 99% by some estimates) of cases? So, was it worth inventing a vaccine for it? Or taking it? Risking long term effects? About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid. And if anyone read about mRNA technology for an afternoon it would be painfully obvious to them that whatever super long term effects covid vaccines might have, covid will virtually surely cause them as well, because mRNA vaccines don't do anything else than covid does. And don't fool yourself that you don't get covid. Unless you are planning to die of something else soon. I will not get covid is as silly as saying I won't get neither flu nor cold before I die, even asymptomatically. > It makes more sense for individuals to evaluate their risk tolerance and circumstances to decide which trade-offs they are willing to take on. No, it doesn't, because people actively avoid available knowledge in their personal risk estimations. So their estimation of both the risk and their willingness to take on risks is estimated wrong. Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations.

throwawaysea 5y ago
I did read the recent discussion on HN around polio, and it does bring up some interesting questions as you’ve noted. But polio’s effects were more prevalent. The WHO says (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelit...) that 1 in 200 infected with polio experience irreversible paralysis (usually the legs), and 5-10% of those with paralysis die, meaning the IFR was 0.025%. The IFR for COVID-19 is incredibly low for those under 50, as most of the deaths impacted senior citizens. Even the CDC's conservative planning scenarios (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...) use a planning IFR for minors of 20 in 1M infections (0.002%) - which is an order of magnitude less than polio. A big part of what made polio’s vaccine acceptance easy was the graphic imagery of children being afflicted with a lifetime of paralysis. There was a certain psychological impact on society from that imagery. People evaluated the risks and decided they were better off going with the vaccine. Another boost for vaccine confidence was that the vaccines used approaches a that were already in wide use in other vaccines. > About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid. The risks of long term effects with COVID are very low, and their severity is very low, and in almost all cases those symptoms disappear. So why is your desire to contain one type of low risk any more important than others’ desire to contain other types of low risk? Regarding mRNA vaccines - I don’t think you are seeing things the way the vaccine hesitant are. The mRNA vaccine can have long term effects we don’t understand. Just because we are focused on its mechanism for efficacy doesn’t meant here aren’t other possible mechanisms involved that we haven’t understood yet. Likewise, we don’t know if any of the other vaccine ingredients will have long-term effects. The mRNA vaccine doses are not solely composed of mRNA material and lipids. And certainly we’ve seen numerous products - both medical and non-medical - banned decades after their initial introduction. The risks of that are low, but it’s nonzero. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but in case it helps make my points more acceptable, I am vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine as is my entire family. > Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations. I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up. This is the exact type of anecdotal risk estimation that you call out a few sentences earlier. I could equally say that the few people who experience severe vaccine side effects may also experience regret. Or that years down the road, it is possible that all those who received [some vaccine] will regret their choice if it is found to cause cancer or something else. The thing is, we don’t really know because we are dealing with the unknown. We don’t understand either the virus or the human body fully. For this and other reasons, I feel it is legitimate for people to choose their own risk profile based on their experiences and gut. I also don’t think anyone should be obligated to undergo a medical procedure like vaccination against their will, because bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty and because I don’t think here’s an obligation to have to take action to protect others against some third-party agent like a virus.