2 ms·

I only have time to checkout out your first article. It seems plausible the KPN folks might have caught a tail-end effect of myocarditis in Covid vaccination. H

I only have time to checkout out your first article. It seems plausible the KPN folks might have caught a tail-end effect of myocarditis in Covid vaccination. However the Kaiser numbers don’t appear that different or concerning to me as an educated lay person. They’re not an order of magnitude higher AFAICT without re-normalizing the units used in the TFA and the KPN paper. AFAICT from the error bars on table 2 in the KPN paper they have pretty wide error bars and CI. That makes sense given that even with on the order of a 100k+ vaccinations you only get 16 cases occurring. TFA presents their data in a form seemingly normalized to 100,000 person-days not just events-per dose. This would potentially also capture much of the long tail effect. Though I’m not well versed in the odds ratio statics most common in these sort of medical studies. Now that being said I am actually somewhat concerned of the lifetime cumulative risk of specifically Covid-19 vaccinations. Particularly if it becomes standard practice to get a new booster every 6 months for the rest of your life. Luckily that practice seems to be ebbing as Covid-19 has become endemic. TFA reports higher rates after the second dose, and excluded booster shots AFAICT. It’s possible booster doses could present the same or higher risk of myocarditis in particular if you’re targeting the exact same spike protein. Some quick back of the napkin calculations show a lifetime risk approaching the fatality risk of say omicron of you did get a dose every 6 months, and the risk was constant. Both of those conditions seem unlikely. For example susceptible people would likely be “weeded out” and the myocarditis risk would drop, and it’s doesn’t seem likely people will gets bi-annual boosters. Also the dosing of mRNA vaccines will likely get better and methods for treating rare events like myocarditis will improve.

marvin 4y ago
> I am actually somewhat concerned of the lifetime cumulative risk of specifically Covid-19 vaccinations. Particularly if it becomes standard practice to get a new booster every 6 months for the rest of your life I think it's valuable to have this public debate in general, and also regarding the quarantine measures. Quarantine measures have been criticized as something of a ratchet that doesn't have anything to do with disease, but rather with authorities controlling the population. And I guess in some locales that criticism has strong merit. But in my locale, all the extraordinary laws enacted to mandate social distancing, quarantines and so on were rolled back this spring, triggering a big Covid wave that turned out to be (in line with health authority expectations) relatively harmless due to vaccinations and previous exposure. Some businesses struggled with their headcount for a few weeks, but within reason. And the laws weren't re-instated. So I recently caught covid along with seven others at a small party, where someone was coughing without covering their mouth all night and of course no one considered wearing a mask. But this is now all in line with official policy. Literally forbidden one year ago, on multiple counts, in principle punishable with jail but generally fines. So I do think it's important to follow up on these arguments. It's always a cost-benefit judgement, and it's ultimately a democratic, political question. Not something that can be decided by a bureaucrat. I've always figured that everyone getting booster shots every six months for 30 years sounded almost parodically excessive, but certainly there have been a few voices demanding that.
- native_samples 4y ago
  This year's COVID waves are quite harmless also to unvaccinated people. It's because Omicron is less dangerous, not because of vaccination, but of course public health authorities will ignore this and claim victory. What else can they do? Public health is a dangerous concept by construction because the social costs of them admitting they were wrong are so high.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    when surmising that the only reason someone hasn't "admitted" they were wrong (and assuming you are right), is fear of the social costs, it's always good to take a step back and see if you are actually the one unable to admit being wrong, for the same reason
    - native_samples 4y ago
      What social costs? I'm a nobody on the internet. Although outside of HN I've posted things about COVID and the failures of public health, they had little impact because I'm not a part of that community. As a consequence: 1. I have no career in public health or academia to defend. 2. If I was wrong (I'm not) then it might hurt my standing a bit, but lots of people on the internet have opinions on random topics that other people think are wrong and they still manage to get jobs, create products, get customers etc. 3. Likewise, being right also doesn't help my career or life very much. Contrast this to people like Ferguson or Fauci: 1. Their entire professional existence hinges on the perception that they are experts in disease. 2. If they were wrong (they are) then it'd not only hurt their standing a bit, but cause hundreds of millions or billions of people to hate them viscerally due to the staggering costs of what they insisted on. It would also destroy their self-esteem and result in them knowing that they'd done evil things, making them some of the most notorious people in history. 3. In contrast, if they were right, they .... get to keep their current jobs, salary and social status, more or less. Frankly if I did work in public health it'd be very hard to imagine ever admitting to mistakes either. Public health operates through government force and COVID policies in particular involved forcing people to do things harmful to themselves at great cost to themselves, against their will. You have to believe you made the right calls if you're in that position, it's the corrupting influence of power. If you didn't you'd immediately quit in shame and never show your face in polite society again, so the only ones that survive in that world are the merciless ones who can never admit they are wrong. Which is exactly what we see!

marvin 4y ago

> I am actually somewhat concerned of the lifetime cumulative risk of specifically Covid-19 vaccinations. Particularly if it becomes standard practice to get a new booster every 6 months for the rest of your life I think it's valuable to have this public debate in general, and also regarding the quarantine measures. Quarantine measures have been criticized as something of a ratchet that doesn't have anything to do with disease, but rather with authorities controlling the population. And I guess in some locales that criticism has strong merit. But in my locale, all the extraordinary laws enacted to mandate social distancing, quarantines and so on were rolled back this spring, triggering a big Covid wave that turned out to be (in line with health authority expectations) relatively harmless due to vaccinations and previous exposure. Some businesses struggled with their headcount for a few weeks, but within reason. And the laws weren't re-instated. So I recently caught covid along with seven others at a small party, where someone was coughing without covering their mouth all night and of course no one considered wearing a mask. But this is now all in line with official policy. Literally forbidden one year ago, on multiple counts, in principle punishable with jail but generally fines. So I do think it's important to follow up on these arguments. It's always a cost-benefit judgement, and it's ultimately a democratic, political question. Not something that can be decided by a bureaucrat. I've always figured that everyone getting booster shots every six months for 30 years sounded almost parodically excessive, but certainly there have been a few voices demanding that.

native_samples 4y ago
This year's COVID waves are quite harmless also to unvaccinated people. It's because Omicron is less dangerous, not because of vaccination, but of course public health authorities will ignore this and claim victory. What else can they do? Public health is a dangerous concept by construction because the social costs of them admitting they were wrong are so high.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  when surmising that the only reason someone hasn't "admitted" they were wrong (and assuming you are right), is fear of the social costs, it's always good to take a step back and see if you are actually the one unable to admit being wrong, for the same reason
  - native_samples 4y ago
    What social costs? I'm a nobody on the internet. Although outside of HN I've posted things about COVID and the failures of public health, they had little impact because I'm not a part of that community. As a consequence: 1. I have no career in public health or academia to defend. 2. If I was wrong (I'm not) then it might hurt my standing a bit, but lots of people on the internet have opinions on random topics that other people think are wrong and they still manage to get jobs, create products, get customers etc. 3. Likewise, being right also doesn't help my career or life very much. Contrast this to people like Ferguson or Fauci: 1. Their entire professional existence hinges on the perception that they are experts in disease. 2. If they were wrong (they are) then it'd not only hurt their standing a bit, but cause hundreds of millions or billions of people to hate them viscerally due to the staggering costs of what they insisted on. It would also destroy their self-esteem and result in them knowing that they'd done evil things, making them some of the most notorious people in history. 3. In contrast, if they were right, they .... get to keep their current jobs, salary and social status, more or less. Frankly if I did work in public health it'd be very hard to imagine ever admitting to mistakes either. Public health operates through government force and COVID policies in particular involved forcing people to do things harmful to themselves at great cost to themselves, against their will. You have to believe you made the right calls if you're in that position, it's the corrupting influence of power. If you didn't you'd immediately quit in shame and never show your face in polite society again, so the only ones that survive in that world are the merciless ones who can never admit they are wrong. Which is exactly what we see!