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The roulette wheel is being spun with every injection. I think this aspect is underrepresented too. Having three jabs means having a 1/n chance three times, wit

by ls15 5y ago

The roulette wheel is being spun with every injection. I think this aspect is underrepresented too. Having three jabs means having a 1/n chance three times, with varying n each time. We are not only talking about vaccine mandates, but also booster mandates. The basis for these is even thinner, because especially since Omicron, the benefit/risk ratio is even worse. The risk has not changed, while the benefits just visibly decreased. "The risk is about the same" is not even a good ratio to begin with, and it also does not match with what has been communicated to the public over and over - that the risks would be astronomically small, compared to the benefits. With the ratio that is currently known, the vaccines would have had a harder time to get approved. I don't think that mass vaccination mandates can be upheld as soon as the public becomes aware of the actual ratios.

alkonaut 5y ago
> The roulette wheel is being spun with every injection. Yes - as with any medication. But my point is, it's some times seen as being a roulette wheel with the vaccine but no one mentions the elephant in the room which is that the side effects are at worst much more common, and at best about equal, with infection. Basically if you don't get vaccinated, you are spinning a worse roulette wheel. > The basis for these is even thinner, because especially since Omicron, the benefit/risk ratio is even worse. The risk has not changed, while the benefits just visibly decreased. There are three levels of risk here. Individual risk, group risk (protecting people in a more vulnerable group, for example), and societal risk (preventing spread, or limiting the damage to publically funded healthcare by limiting your own risk). Now with omicron, the individual risk for a healthy 30 year old is obviously way down. The societal risk from the disease is very high due to infectivity (staff shortages etc), and the group risk is also rather high as the disease is still pretty bad for the oldest age group, especially without boosters. But even so: vaccines aren't only about individual risk. And vaccine mandates aren't only acceptable when it's a net positive to the individual! On the contrary, when it's a net positive, they may not even be needed - people have incentive enough to get vaccinated anyway! Mandating vaccines despite unclear individual benefit (and to be clear its STILL very much a solid benefit even for healthy recovered young people, but for the sake of argument) is no easy ethical problem. The answer to that has been different in different countries, or even within countries (e.g. some countries have had varying degrees of mandates for adult vaccine but not even approved it for healthy young chilren because the individual risk is too low).
- ls15 5y ago
  > There are three levels of risk here. Individual risk, group risk (protecting people in a more vulnerable group, for example), and societal risk (preventing spread, or limiting the damage to publically funded healthcare by limiting your own risk). Now with omicron, the individual risk for a healthy 30 year old is obviously way down. The societal risk from the disease is very high due to infectivity (staff shortages etc), and the group risk is also rather high as the disease is still pretty bad for the oldest age group, especially without boosters. So it seems like a good idea for vulnerable people to get boostered. People can protect themselves from severe disease with the vaccination. The evidence that others are protected through a vaccination is pretty much non-existent. A reduction of societal risk is not a strong argument in this case, because the absolute reduction of risk by the vaccine is very small. Below 3%. You need to vaccinate about 100 people in order to prevent one more case, based on data from before last April. I bet it is worse now with Omicron: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00069-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    > The evidence that others are protected through a vaccination is pretty much non-existent No the evidence that it protects against severe disease is pretty strong. But there is no need to even go into that discussion. The evidence that hospitals will be less stressed if more people are vaccinated, so that my risk of (say) getting care delayed for a heart attack or broken bone, is important. > in order to prevent one more case We aren't preventing nearly any cases now with Omicron. The protection is just too low. But the protection against severe disease and death is good. Everyone will get omicron (or a later even more infectious variant) eventually. The question is: how many of them will be severe? How flat will the peak be of severe cases? Vaccinations at this point are about societal risk and severe disease. It's not about individual risk or preventing infection.

by ls15 5y ago

alkonaut 5y ago

> The roulette wheel is being spun with every injection. Yes - as with any medication. But my point is, it's some times seen as being a roulette wheel with the vaccine but no one mentions the elephant in the room which is that the side effects are at worst much more common, and at best about equal, with infection. Basically if you don't get vaccinated, you are spinning a worse roulette wheel. > The basis for these is even thinner, because especially since Omicron, the benefit/risk ratio is even worse. The risk has not changed, while the benefits just visibly decreased. There are three levels of risk here. Individual risk, group risk (protecting people in a more vulnerable group, for example), and societal risk (preventing spread, or limiting the damage to publically funded healthcare by limiting your own risk). Now with omicron, the individual risk for a healthy 30 year old is obviously way down. The societal risk from the disease is very high due to infectivity (staff shortages etc), and the group risk is also rather high as the disease is still pretty bad for the oldest age group, especially without boosters. But even so: vaccines aren't only about individual risk. And vaccine mandates aren't only acceptable when it's a net positive to the individual! On the contrary, when it's a net positive, they may not even be needed - people have incentive enough to get vaccinated anyway! Mandating vaccines despite unclear individual benefit (and to be clear its STILL very much a solid benefit even for healthy recovered young people, but for the sake of argument) is no easy ethical problem. The answer to that has been different in different countries, or even within countries (e.g. some countries have had varying degrees of mandates for adult vaccine but not even approved it for healthy young chilren because the individual risk is too low).

ls15 5y ago
> There are three levels of risk here. Individual risk, group risk (protecting people in a more vulnerable group, for example), and societal risk (preventing spread, or limiting the damage to publically funded healthcare by limiting your own risk). Now with omicron, the individual risk for a healthy 30 year old is obviously way down. The societal risk from the disease is very high due to infectivity (staff shortages etc), and the group risk is also rather high as the disease is still pretty bad for the oldest age group, especially without boosters. So it seems like a good idea for vulnerable people to get boostered. People can protect themselves from severe disease with the vaccination. The evidence that others are protected through a vaccination is pretty much non-existent. A reduction of societal risk is not a strong argument in this case, because the absolute reduction of risk by the vaccine is very small. Below 3%. You need to vaccinate about 100 people in order to prevent one more case, based on data from before last April. I bet it is worse now with Omicron: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00069-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...
- alkonaut 5y ago
  > The evidence that others are protected through a vaccination is pretty much non-existent No the evidence that it protects against severe disease is pretty strong. But there is no need to even go into that discussion. The evidence that hospitals will be less stressed if more people are vaccinated, so that my risk of (say) getting care delayed for a heart attack or broken bone, is important. > in order to prevent one more case We aren't preventing nearly any cases now with Omicron. The protection is just too low. But the protection against severe disease and death is good. Everyone will get omicron (or a later even more infectious variant) eventually. The question is: how many of them will be severe? How flat will the peak be of severe cases? Vaccinations at this point are about societal risk and severe disease. It's not about individual risk or preventing infection.