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Any vaccine triggers an immune response, so it's not surprising that there's some small risk to people in taking them. But people are really bad at doing the ma

Any vaccine triggers an immune response, so it's not surprising that there's some small risk to people in taking them. But people are really bad at doing the math when it comes to the risk of serious complications or death from covid vs the risk of serious complications from vaccines. It's a difference of several orders of magnitude.

WanderPanda 4y ago
But you need to trust the data, and given the politicisation of the issue I get that people don‘t trust that this is properly researched/understood.
cm2187 4y ago
Not for young healthy people. And the covid risk for that population, even before omicron, was negligible in the first place. As you said people are really bad at doing the maths, and it is easy to scare people with risks that are of the same order of magnitude than winning the lottery or dying in a plane crash.
- undersuit 4y ago
  The study reported 411 events in over 15 million people aged 18-64. Meanwhile the US has had 6300+ Covid deaths for the ~46 million Americans aged 18-29. Pretty easy to see the numbers favor taking the vaccine.
  - leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
    It really depends. How many of the 6000+ had other major health issues? What are my chances as a healthy 20 something from dying or having a serious complications? VS the unknowns of the vaccine for short term and long term issues? If I had other issues I'd think harder about it. But especially since I already had covid this spring, I'm really see no need in getting the shot.
    - cm2187 4y ago
      And on top of what you say, even based on the numbers from the parent we are comparing a 99.986% to a 99.997% chance of being ok. Either way not something worth worrying about, tiny risks. I am sure you can draw similar differences in risk of boarding a boeing plane vs an airbus plane (because so few events contribute to deaths and boeing had a few crashes recently). The reality is that either is a risk too small to worry about and it would be absurd to insist on one over the other. Understanding statistics isn’t just about computing things, it is also about looking at the numbers.
      - jmcgough 4y ago
        I don't really understand this mentality. If the difference is negligible, why wouldn't you want to get vaccinated just to do more to protect other people around you? They can do everything right (get vaccinated etc) and still get sick and die if they're exposed to covid.
        cm2187 4y ago
        1. it doesn't protect people around me, the vaccine does not meaningfully reduce the spread of the virus. It is puzzling that people still make this argument. 2. I had side effects after both injections, including a day in bed with fever. This is not a candy.
    - undersuit 4y ago
      How many of the 411 had other major health issues?
- sroussey 4y ago
  Anecdotes often help people defy math. For example, I know a guy that was a triathlete but a year after Covid still can’t breath well enough to run. He is 19.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Not for young healthy people. And the covid risk for that population, even before omicron, was negligible in the first place. About 20% of young and 40% of adult people in the US are considered obese [1], which has been closely associated with more severe COVID-19 cases [2]. Additionally, even young and completely healthy people have parents and grandparents. While they themselves can be completely fine after a run-in with COVID-19, their family may not be... just look at your workplace and sick leaves. It's usually all the parents that call in sick at the same time because some wave of shit is sweeping through the schools, be it the regular common cold, RSV, flu, norovirus, whatever. The problem is, us humans have adapted somewhat to these viruses, but not against SARS-CoV-2... and now it spreads to the affected generations via the children. Can you imagine just how horrible a 10 year old feels when he learns that the COVID infection he got at school killed off his grandparents? [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/obesity-american-adults-youth/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/obesity-a... [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-de...
  - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
    What a pity the vaccine didn't stop infections/eradicate the virus.
    - marvin 4y ago
      You shouldn't use the sarcastic tone. It didn't seem at all clear in 2020 that the virus would quickly mutate to more than double its already dangerously high R0 number. If you're aware of someone credible who said this as more than a wild-ass guess at the time, it'd be interesting to see a link. I'm sure someone somewhere managed to reason that far, but we work based on the facts we have, not how they look in retrospect. The mRNA vaccines did reduce R below 1 in populations with reasonable vaccine coverage of the initial Wuhan strain, increasing to optimistic (but achieved in many countries) vaccine coverage with the "British" Alpha strain. And then becoming unviable to reduce R below 1 with Delta and later. But even then, vaccination reduced the average reproductive number, which from a public health perspective had great temporary value in buying more time for getting vaccines to all who needed and wanted them. Europe will probably officially roll back its vaccine passport thingy soon, exactly due to this. Granted, that's a bit late, which is another example of not working based on the facts we have, but then again most countries have practically ignored these rules for more than six months already. I do have sympathy for the arguments around bodily autonomy/coerced vaccination/violation of fundamental democratic right of travel and so on, but it's a question with a bit of nuance to it.
parkingrift 4y ago
>But people are really bad at doing the math when it comes to the risk of serious complications or death from covid vs the risk of serious complications from vaccines. It's a difference of several orders of magnitude. Covid risks are not evenly distributed throughout the population. An extreme majority of serious cases are people older than 65, fat people, or people with other existing health issues. If you are young, healthy, and active you are at virtually zero risk of Covid. If you are under 25, healthy, and active there is practically no personal health reason to get vaccinated for Covid.
- jseban 4y ago
  Yep, it's just inflicting suffering also to the healthy in a misguided and desperate attempt to improve a situation by making it more "fair". When in reality the total amount of suffering is just increasing many times, which just makes it much worse. But this is a typical communist/religious idea that you should "share" suffering by punishing yourself.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    How is protecting yourself from a disease with a low but real risk of life-altering effects by taking a vaccine with minuscule (but also real) risks a form of self-punishment???
    - jseban 4y ago
      How? Because you are (forced) to take a second dose of a vaccine that's not needed, which makes you sick and gives you heart inflammation. That's how.
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        Well, taking the vaccine still has a much lower chance of causing heart inflammation than getting the disease while unvaccinated does, even when multiplied with the chance of getting the disease at all.
- 4y ago

WanderPanda 4y ago

But you need to trust the data, and given the politicisation of the issue I get that people don‘t trust that this is properly researched/understood.

cm2187 4y ago

Not for young healthy people. And the covid risk for that population, even before omicron, was negligible in the first place. As you said people are really bad at doing the maths, and it is easy to scare people with risks that are of the same order of magnitude than winning the lottery or dying in a plane crash.

undersuit 4y ago
The study reported 411 events in over 15 million people aged 18-64. Meanwhile the US has had 6300+ Covid deaths for the ~46 million Americans aged 18-29. Pretty easy to see the numbers favor taking the vaccine.
- leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
  It really depends. How many of the 6000+ had other major health issues? What are my chances as a healthy 20 something from dying or having a serious complications? VS the unknowns of the vaccine for short term and long term issues? If I had other issues I'd think harder about it. But especially since I already had covid this spring, I'm really see no need in getting the shot.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    And on top of what you say, even based on the numbers from the parent we are comparing a 99.986% to a 99.997% chance of being ok. Either way not something worth worrying about, tiny risks. I am sure you can draw similar differences in risk of boarding a boeing plane vs an airbus plane (because so few events contribute to deaths and boeing had a few crashes recently). The reality is that either is a risk too small to worry about and it would be absurd to insist on one over the other. Understanding statistics isn’t just about computing things, it is also about looking at the numbers.
    - jmcgough 4y ago
      I don't really understand this mentality. If the difference is negligible, why wouldn't you want to get vaccinated just to do more to protect other people around you? They can do everything right (get vaccinated etc) and still get sick and die if they're exposed to covid.
      - cm2187 4y ago
        1. it doesn't protect people around me, the vaccine does not meaningfully reduce the spread of the virus. It is puzzling that people still make this argument. 2. I had side effects after both injections, including a day in bed with fever. This is not a candy.
  - undersuit 4y ago
    How many of the 411 had other major health issues?
sroussey 4y ago
Anecdotes often help people defy math. For example, I know a guy that was a triathlete but a year after Covid still can’t breath well enough to run. He is 19.
mschuster91 4y ago
> Not for young healthy people. And the covid risk for that population, even before omicron, was negligible in the first place. About 20% of young and 40% of adult people in the US are considered obese [1], which has been closely associated with more severe COVID-19 cases [2]. Additionally, even young and completely healthy people have parents and grandparents. While they themselves can be completely fine after a run-in with COVID-19, their family may not be... just look at your workplace and sick leaves. It's usually all the parents that call in sick at the same time because some wave of shit is sweeping through the schools, be it the regular common cold, RSV, flu, norovirus, whatever. The problem is, us humans have adapted somewhat to these viruses, but not against SARS-CoV-2... and now it spreads to the affected generations via the children. Can you imagine just how horrible a 10 year old feels when he learns that the COVID infection he got at school killed off his grandparents? [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/obesity-american-adults-youth/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/obesity-a... [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-de...
- inkblotuniverse 4y ago
  What a pity the vaccine didn't stop infections/eradicate the virus.
  - marvin 4y ago
    You shouldn't use the sarcastic tone. It didn't seem at all clear in 2020 that the virus would quickly mutate to more than double its already dangerously high R0 number. If you're aware of someone credible who said this as more than a wild-ass guess at the time, it'd be interesting to see a link. I'm sure someone somewhere managed to reason that far, but we work based on the facts we have, not how they look in retrospect. The mRNA vaccines did reduce R below 1 in populations with reasonable vaccine coverage of the initial Wuhan strain, increasing to optimistic (but achieved in many countries) vaccine coverage with the "British" Alpha strain. And then becoming unviable to reduce R below 1 with Delta and later. But even then, vaccination reduced the average reproductive number, which from a public health perspective had great temporary value in buying more time for getting vaccines to all who needed and wanted them. Europe will probably officially roll back its vaccine passport thingy soon, exactly due to this. Granted, that's a bit late, which is another example of not working based on the facts we have, but then again most countries have practically ignored these rules for more than six months already. I do have sympathy for the arguments around bodily autonomy/coerced vaccination/violation of fundamental democratic right of travel and so on, but it's a question with a bit of nuance to it.

parkingrift 4y ago

>But people are really bad at doing the math when it comes to the risk of serious complications or death from covid vs the risk of serious complications from vaccines. It's a difference of several orders of magnitude. Covid risks are not evenly distributed throughout the population. An extreme majority of serious cases are people older than 65, fat people, or people with other existing health issues. If you are young, healthy, and active you are at virtually zero risk of Covid. If you are under 25, healthy, and active there is practically no personal health reason to get vaccinated for Covid.

jseban 4y ago
Yep, it's just inflicting suffering also to the healthy in a misguided and desperate attempt to improve a situation by making it more "fair". When in reality the total amount of suffering is just increasing many times, which just makes it much worse. But this is a typical communist/religious idea that you should "share" suffering by punishing yourself.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  How is protecting yourself from a disease with a low but real risk of life-altering effects by taking a vaccine with minuscule (but also real) risks a form of self-punishment???
  - jseban 4y ago
    How? Because you are (forced) to take a second dose of a vaccine that's not needed, which makes you sick and gives you heart inflammation. That's how.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Well, taking the vaccine still has a much lower chance of causing heart inflammation than getting the disease while unvaccinated does, even when multiplied with the chance of getting the disease at all.
4y ago