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As a double, soon triple vaccinated healthy grown up, one thing I'd wish to say: For people like me (healty, 40ies male in a job were I can work from home) the

As a double, soon triple vaccinated healthy grown up, one thing I'd wish to say: For people like me (healty, 40ies male in a job were I can work from home) the big reason to be vaccinated is for my own: I don't want to be sick for days or be unable to smell or taste. I also don't want to feel freezing cold, have headaches that makes it impossible to work or have the nasty long term side effects some get from Covid. To avoid that I take the probably much smaller risk of taking the vaccine. But it is something I do for me, my family and my employer. Not something I do for society: Covid has already proven beyond all my doubt that it won't eliminated by any of the current vaccines so for now I'm deaf to any claim to take it for anyone else, i.e. the herd immunity argument.

lmilcin 5y ago
Covid could have been eliminated at some point. We know because there are scary other viruses like ebola that are not ravaging entire world because the moment it shows up we act decisively -- exactly because it is so deadly and scary. Because Covid is not so scary everybody elected to wait and see how exponential growth looks like in practice. If it had 20% death rate we would have couple thousand people die of it at most.
- hoseja 5y ago
  The worst crime was comrades in Wuhan denying any such outbreak is possible just before a Party meeting.
  - hestefisk 5y ago
    Or American politicians telling their constituents that masks and vaccines don’t work.
    - herbst 5y ago
      We have to keep this stuff in our brain and history. The way how many leaders acted in the beginning of all this drastically changed the way we see some politics and countries. It seems that these horrible stupid decisions and lies are fading into irrelevance already
- ekianjo 5y ago
  No, we had no tools to eradicate it in the first place.
- refurb 5y ago
  I think the draconian measures that China put in place make it very clear I could never have been eliminated. Not to mention the animal reservoirs (mink, domesticated pets, livestock). Sure we could have maintained a lockdown for years to keep infection rates minimized, but that’s not a long term solution nor a process that will lead to elimination.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Except the draconian measures that China put actually worked initially. They lost battle when entire world around them got sick and it did not make sense for China to be isolated. What did not work is other countries closing their borders immediately the moment it was known that the virus escaped China. When the numbers of sick are low you can track every individual and preemptively put everybody he spent time with in isolation. This is how we fight other viruses like ebola, successfully, even without vaccines. There still exists no vaccine for ebola. The only real mechanism to prevent it spreading is finding and isolating people. And, yes, ebola has reservoirs. And no, we are not in constant lockdown due to ebola.
    - refurb 5y ago
      The fact that China has a couple cities of several million on lockdown right now and still seeing rising cases is pretty much proof it didn’t work?
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        No, it is not. What happened initially and what is happening now are two completely different things. Nobody disputes that it is no longer possible to beat the virus. Even if China did beat the virus completely they would still be receiving fresh cases from abroad. China is in a difficult situation now, because their vaccines are completely ineffective for Omicron, because their population is so densely packed and has low health standards and because their health system is much more fragile.
        5y ago
- toolz 5y ago
  Eliminating covid was never possible. Are you not aware of how many animal carriers there are or are you suggesting we could've prevented animal transmission somehow?
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    It could have been killed until around 18 months ago. We chose to let people travel and to not put in place the same countermeasures that China put in place.
    - toolz 5y ago
      China hasn't eliminated covid in human or animals. No one has.
- mdpye 5y ago
  Some points to consider: - ebola is transmitted via physical contact (with bodily fluids), not vapour in the air - ebola tends to be contagious only once symptoms appear, not for several days before Those two points alone make the two completely incomparable in terms of containment.
vlaaad 5y ago
Just a heads up, I'm vaccinated and currently have covid. I was sick for days, barely able to smell, was freezing cold, had headaches — all as you describe. So.. not sure it will help you.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hestefisk 5y ago
  In Australia, of those in hospital or ICU with covid, more than half are unvaccinated. 92% of the country are vaccinated, so the remainder accounts for half of hospitalisations. That’s a massive difference. Vaccines help, they are not perfect, but they help.
  - ssl232 5y ago
    You may be right, but you cannot actually conclude that, because the country is 92% vaccinated and half of ICU are unvaccinated, the vaccines work. You need to stratify at least by age, but also by comorbidities and so on. For example, it could be (not saying it is the case) that most of the ICU patients were considered too frail to be given the vaccine on medical grounds, and thus count as unvaccinated. Too many politicians make "X is true therefore Y is true" statements that cannot actually be made based on the data being cited. One thing that's been clear from the beginning is the need for nuance and consideration of the details, not just blind jumps. There are health statisticians and mathematicians that do this sort of study for a living and I wish more politicians would cite their work.
    - crispypotatoes 5y ago
      > You may be right, but you cannot actually conclude that, because the country is 92% vaccinated and half of ICU are unvaccinated They're two separate data points, he hasn't done this He's stated separately that 92% of the country is vaccinated AND (separately) half of ICU admissions are from the unvaccinated, what it means is that that remaining 8% are responsible for more than half of the COVID hospitalisations Considering how much of a surveillance state AUS has, they likely do have the data to draw these conclusions It really does show how effective they are in also reducing the severity of the condition, which is a very important point to make
its_grubzy 5y ago
> But it is something I do for me, my family and my employer. Not something I do for society I'd say that this is exactly the definition of doing it for society!
- skinkestek 5y ago
  I don't do it for the elderly or for everyone who works in healthcare or so on though. Not because that wouldn't be worth it but because at this point my vaccination status doesn't change anything for those.
  - croon 5y ago
    > Not because that wouldn't be worth it but because at this point my vaccination status doesn't change anything for those. Who do you think is in the hospital with covid? I'm glad you came to the right conclusion even with the wrong parameters though.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      > Who do you think is in the hospital with covid? Around here? Not 40ish well trained med, and particularly not double vaccinated ones. I do this for me, my wife, my boss and my client (so I won't have to skip my duties at home or work for days).
      - croon 5y ago
        Yes, exactly, but you'd have a higher chance of taking up a hospital bed if you weren't vaccinated, thus your status does something for hospital staff, which is what I was replying to. Even if that wasn't your motivation, getting vaccinated is good for society as well.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  No. He's not doing it for society at large waving my hand in a large circle. He's doing it for people close to him which is a very fucking different narrative and motivation. Doesn't mean it doesn't benefit society at large waving hand in a large circle but that's not the same thing.
klohto 5y ago
Another heads up, fully vaccinated as well but Delta reseted my smell and taste.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
That's basically the argument I use for masking. The severity of infection appears to be correlated with initial viral load. It seems unlikely that I'll be able to avoid getting COVID, but when I do get it, I want it to be as light as possible.
lamontcg 5y ago
> Covid has already proven beyond all my doubt that it won't eliminated by any of the current vaccines so for now I'm deaf to any claim to take it for anyone else, i.e. the herd immunity argument. You're doing it to stay out of the hospital. That helps you and helps society. The biggest fuckup in this whole thing was everyone getting their hopes up that the vaccines would end the pandemic via controlling transmission. That is all your largely all you alls fault though. At the end of 2020 it was looking increasingly likely that it was going to be endemic with the Alpha variant having been found, the related coronavirus 229E having been found to evolve antigenically, and Fauci was setting expectations that the vaccines would only be about 50% effective in preventing transmission. For example August 7, 2020: https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/fauci-says-covid-19-vaccine-may-only-be-50-percent-effective/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/fauci-says-covid-19-vaccine-ma... > Fauci says COVID-19 vaccine may only be 50 percent effective > The odds of a coronavirus vaccine being highly effective are low, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday — and getting people to take it might not be easy, either. The problem is that the initial VE results before any waning of neutralizing antibodies had happened and before any variants were way too optimistic and the results were not durable. But we're still at >90% protection against severe disease and hospitalization along with long COVID and other issues -- turning Omicron into a cold virus for the triple-vaxxed, which was always the point if anyone actually listened to experts and not the news media.

lmilcin 5y ago

Covid could have been eliminated at some point. We know because there are scary other viruses like ebola that are not ravaging entire world because the moment it shows up we act decisively -- exactly because it is so deadly and scary. Because Covid is not so scary everybody elected to wait and see how exponential growth looks like in practice. If it had 20% death rate we would have couple thousand people die of it at most.

hoseja 5y ago
The worst crime was comrades in Wuhan denying any such outbreak is possible just before a Party meeting.
- hestefisk 5y ago
  Or American politicians telling their constituents that masks and vaccines don’t work.
  - herbst 5y ago
    We have to keep this stuff in our brain and history. The way how many leaders acted in the beginning of all this drastically changed the way we see some politics and countries. It seems that these horrible stupid decisions and lies are fading into irrelevance already
ekianjo 5y ago
No, we had no tools to eradicate it in the first place.
refurb 5y ago
I think the draconian measures that China put in place make it very clear I could never have been eliminated. Not to mention the animal reservoirs (mink, domesticated pets, livestock). Sure we could have maintained a lockdown for years to keep infection rates minimized, but that’s not a long term solution nor a process that will lead to elimination.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Except the draconian measures that China put actually worked initially. They lost battle when entire world around them got sick and it did not make sense for China to be isolated. What did not work is other countries closing their borders immediately the moment it was known that the virus escaped China. When the numbers of sick are low you can track every individual and preemptively put everybody he spent time with in isolation. This is how we fight other viruses like ebola, successfully, even without vaccines. There still exists no vaccine for ebola. The only real mechanism to prevent it spreading is finding and isolating people. And, yes, ebola has reservoirs. And no, we are not in constant lockdown due to ebola.
  - refurb 5y ago
    The fact that China has a couple cities of several million on lockdown right now and still seeing rising cases is pretty much proof it didn’t work?
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      No, it is not. What happened initially and what is happening now are two completely different things. Nobody disputes that it is no longer possible to beat the virus. Even if China did beat the virus completely they would still be receiving fresh cases from abroad. China is in a difficult situation now, because their vaccines are completely ineffective for Omicron, because their population is so densely packed and has low health standards and because their health system is much more fragile.
      - 5y ago
toolz 5y ago
Eliminating covid was never possible. Are you not aware of how many animal carriers there are or are you suggesting we could've prevented animal transmission somehow?
- skinkestek 5y ago
  It could have been killed until around 18 months ago. We chose to let people travel and to not put in place the same countermeasures that China put in place.
  - toolz 5y ago
    China hasn't eliminated covid in human or animals. No one has.
mdpye 5y ago
Some points to consider: - ebola is transmitted via physical contact (with bodily fluids), not vapour in the air - ebola tends to be contagious only once symptoms appear, not for several days before Those two points alone make the two completely incomparable in terms of containment.

vlaaad 5y ago

Just a heads up, I'm vaccinated and currently have covid. I was sick for days, barely able to smell, was freezing cold, had headaches — all as you describe. So.. not sure it will help you.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hestefisk 5y ago
In Australia, of those in hospital or ICU with covid, more than half are unvaccinated. 92% of the country are vaccinated, so the remainder accounts for half of hospitalisations. That’s a massive difference. Vaccines help, they are not perfect, but they help.
- ssl232 5y ago
  You may be right, but you cannot actually conclude that, because the country is 92% vaccinated and half of ICU are unvaccinated, the vaccines work. You need to stratify at least by age, but also by comorbidities and so on. For example, it could be (not saying it is the case) that most of the ICU patients were considered too frail to be given the vaccine on medical grounds, and thus count as unvaccinated. Too many politicians make "X is true therefore Y is true" statements that cannot actually be made based on the data being cited. One thing that's been clear from the beginning is the need for nuance and consideration of the details, not just blind jumps. There are health statisticians and mathematicians that do this sort of study for a living and I wish more politicians would cite their work.
  - crispypotatoes 5y ago
    > You may be right, but you cannot actually conclude that, because the country is 92% vaccinated and half of ICU are unvaccinated They're two separate data points, he hasn't done this He's stated separately that 92% of the country is vaccinated AND (separately) half of ICU admissions are from the unvaccinated, what it means is that that remaining 8% are responsible for more than half of the COVID hospitalisations Considering how much of a surveillance state AUS has, they likely do have the data to draw these conclusions It really does show how effective they are in also reducing the severity of the condition, which is a very important point to make

its_grubzy 5y ago

> But it is something I do for me, my family and my employer. Not something I do for society I'd say that this is exactly the definition of doing it for society!

skinkestek 5y ago
I don't do it for the elderly or for everyone who works in healthcare or so on though. Not because that wouldn't be worth it but because at this point my vaccination status doesn't change anything for those.
- croon 5y ago
  > Not because that wouldn't be worth it but because at this point my vaccination status doesn't change anything for those. Who do you think is in the hospital with covid? I'm glad you came to the right conclusion even with the wrong parameters though.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    > Who do you think is in the hospital with covid? Around here? Not 40ish well trained med, and particularly not double vaccinated ones. I do this for me, my wife, my boss and my client (so I won't have to skip my duties at home or work for days).
    - croon 5y ago
      Yes, exactly, but you'd have a higher chance of taking up a hospital bed if you weren't vaccinated, thus your status does something for hospital staff, which is what I was replying to. Even if that wasn't your motivation, getting vaccinated is good for society as well.
johnchristopher 5y ago
No. He's not doing it for society at large waving my hand in a large circle. He's doing it for people close to him which is a very fucking different narrative and motivation. Doesn't mean it doesn't benefit society at large waving hand in a large circle but that's not the same thing.

klohto 5y ago

Another heads up, fully vaccinated as well but Delta reseted my smell and taste.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

That's basically the argument I use for masking. The severity of infection appears to be correlated with initial viral load. It seems unlikely that I'll be able to avoid getting COVID, but when I do get it, I want it to be as light as possible.

lamontcg 5y ago

> Covid has already proven beyond all my doubt that it won't eliminated by any of the current vaccines so for now I'm deaf to any claim to take it for anyone else, i.e. the herd immunity argument. You're doing it to stay out of the hospital. That helps you and helps society. The biggest fuckup in this whole thing was everyone getting their hopes up that the vaccines would end the pandemic via controlling transmission. That is all your largely all you alls fault though. At the end of 2020 it was looking increasingly likely that it was going to be endemic with the Alpha variant having been found, the related coronavirus 229E having been found to evolve antigenically, and Fauci was setting expectations that the vaccines would only be about 50% effective in preventing transmission. For example August 7, 2020: https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/fauci-says-covid-19-vaccine-may-only-be-50-percent-effective/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/fauci-says-covid-19-vaccine-ma... > Fauci says COVID-19 vaccine may only be 50 percent effective > The odds of a coronavirus vaccine being highly effective are low, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday — and getting people to take it might not be easy, either. The problem is that the initial VE results before any waning of neutralizing antibodies had happened and before any variants were way too optimistic and the results were not durable. But we're still at >90% protection against severe disease and hospitalization along with long COVID and other issues -- turning Omicron into a cold virus for the triple-vaxxed, which was always the point if anyone actually listened to experts and not the news media.