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For the irrationally angry throwaway, here you go: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus

For the irrationally angry throwaway, here you go: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad... VAERS (an early warning system that allows unverified reports and requires physicians to report all seemingly related deaths) shows 0.0022% (9,810) of vaccinated individuals in the US died after receiving the vaccine. Generously assuming all those reports can be directly linked to the vaccination (they can't), that figure is already three orders of magnitude lower than the 1.6% (772,000) of people who caught COVID that died. Looking at the linked charts, if we'd had the vaccine at the beginning, we could surmise that roughly 77,000 (87,000 if you want to add the unconfirmed vaccine deaths) of COVID deaths would have been vaccinated, and almost 700,000 would have been unvaccinated. Add in the potential effect of herd immunity, which we never achieved--who knows how well off we'd be if people hadn't wasted so much energy railing against the public good (for an idea, maybe look at how the polio vaccine went over with the public, and how many people in the US now have polio). Every death is a tragedy. A little bit of elementary school knowledge of how vaccines work, combined with actually using your brain, indicates the degree of tragedy could be reduced at least 10-fold if all the irrationally angry people would just get vaccinated.

lpolovets 5y ago
> that figure is already three orders of magnitude lower than the 1.6% (772,000) I think the interesting ethical/moral/etc debate is what to do for people who are at lower or negligible risk of dying from COVID in the first place. For example, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... suggests that <20k people under 40 have died from covid over 2 years. There might be age groups or demographics where the risk of death from the vaccine is higher than from covid. (This is a statistics observation, not a political statement.) For those groups, what should be expected in terms of vaccination? E.g. what if for your demographic, the risk of death from the vaccine in 1 in 50k but the risk of death from covid is 1 in 200k?
- notatoad 5y ago
  what demographic has a 1 in 50k chance of dying from the vaccine but a 1 in 200k risk of dying from covid?
  - lpolovets 5y ago
    Based on the link in my comment, 600 deaths from covid in the 17 and under bracket since 2019. ~70m people in that age group, so that's 1 in 200k per year for 2 years, roughly? The vaccine risk (1 in 50k) is based on the .0022% figure in the grandparent comment. Not sure how that varies by age.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  if you go that far in your analysis, you should also include long covid in your risk assessment.
- frickinLasers 5y ago
  It seems like it could be a debate worth having. I'd love to see a similar breakdown of vaccine deaths by age (though I don't think there's an official count of confirmed vaccine deaths yet). If a healthy under-40 individual had the same or slightly higher risk of dying from the vaccine as from covid, but a lower risk of passing it to their parents and any elderly person they come into contact with, should they prioritize their own small statistical advantage over the lives of those others? Should they also consider infections down the line, generated by the individuals they infected? If someone were to present a convincing case that such a hypothetical were true, I might be forced to rethink some things. However, since the vaccine isn't mandatory, I don't see much in the way of actionable conclusions (other than posting the stats to the CDC website). Personally, I'd take on at least double the (low) risk to try and protect my family. But I'm also biased by knowing how shitty COVID can be, and preferring a quick death to a COVID death.
  - noxer 5y ago
    There is and never will be a definitive "morally right" answer for all situations. Also death is not the only metric people are scared form side effects that may not cause death. They probably should not be but most people simply cant do the research to "know" the real risks. So most people go by what they are told from someone they trust or they do the opposite of what someone they dont trust says (for example the mainstream media). In the end the only acceptable "morally right" thing to do it to let people decide. This is how it was before covid and this is how it should be after. Will this lead to more death than enforced vaccination for everyone? Yes, it almost certainly will but that should not be the metric. Its an completely "invalid" argument that would never be used for any other similar topic.
absnetneg 5y ago
I think being generous with these arguments hurts more than helps. The reporting rules are mandatory for COVID-19 vaccines because they were authorized under emergency use. "Healthcare providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines are required by law to report the following to VAERS" ... "Death" - https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html Even someone who dies of a car accident gets recorded as a death. There is no judgement call made as to whether the vaccine caused it at all, it is required by law. https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D159F823 https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D159F823 VAERS is a dataset that is meaningless on its own, especially in the case of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is meant to be compared with other datasets to uncover trends which could indicate a problem with the vaccine.

lpolovets 5y ago

> that figure is already three orders of magnitude lower than the 1.6% (772,000) I think the interesting ethical/moral/etc debate is what to do for people who are at lower or negligible risk of dying from COVID in the first place. For example, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... suggests that <20k people under 40 have died from covid over 2 years. There might be age groups or demographics where the risk of death from the vaccine is higher than from covid. (This is a statistics observation, not a political statement.) For those groups, what should be expected in terms of vaccination? E.g. what if for your demographic, the risk of death from the vaccine in 1 in 50k but the risk of death from covid is 1 in 200k?

notatoad 5y ago
what demographic has a 1 in 50k chance of dying from the vaccine but a 1 in 200k risk of dying from covid?
- lpolovets 5y ago
  Based on the link in my comment, 600 deaths from covid in the 17 and under bracket since 2019. ~70m people in that age group, so that's 1 in 200k per year for 2 years, roughly? The vaccine risk (1 in 50k) is based on the .0022% figure in the grandparent comment. Not sure how that varies by age.
Tarsul 5y ago
if you go that far in your analysis, you should also include long covid in your risk assessment.
frickinLasers 5y ago
It seems like it could be a debate worth having. I'd love to see a similar breakdown of vaccine deaths by age (though I don't think there's an official count of confirmed vaccine deaths yet). If a healthy under-40 individual had the same or slightly higher risk of dying from the vaccine as from covid, but a lower risk of passing it to their parents and any elderly person they come into contact with, should they prioritize their own small statistical advantage over the lives of those others? Should they also consider infections down the line, generated by the individuals they infected? If someone were to present a convincing case that such a hypothetical were true, I might be forced to rethink some things. However, since the vaccine isn't mandatory, I don't see much in the way of actionable conclusions (other than posting the stats to the CDC website). Personally, I'd take on at least double the (low) risk to try and protect my family. But I'm also biased by knowing how shitty COVID can be, and preferring a quick death to a COVID death.
- noxer 5y ago
  There is and never will be a definitive "morally right" answer for all situations. Also death is not the only metric people are scared form side effects that may not cause death. They probably should not be but most people simply cant do the research to "know" the real risks. So most people go by what they are told from someone they trust or they do the opposite of what someone they dont trust says (for example the mainstream media). In the end the only acceptable "morally right" thing to do it to let people decide. This is how it was before covid and this is how it should be after. Will this lead to more death than enforced vaccination for everyone? Yes, it almost certainly will but that should not be the metric. Its an completely "invalid" argument that would never be used for any other similar topic.

absnetneg 5y ago

I think being generous with these arguments hurts more than helps. The reporting rules are mandatory for COVID-19 vaccines because they were authorized under emergency use. "Healthcare providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines are required by law to report the following to VAERS" ... "Death" - https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html Even someone who dies of a car accident gets recorded as a death. There is no judgement call made as to whether the vaccine caused it at all, it is required by law. https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D159F823 https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D159F823 VAERS is a dataset that is meaningless on its own, especially in the case of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is meant to be compared with other datasets to uncover trends which could indicate a problem with the vaccine.