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I'm not sure the public - at least in North America - has much of an appetite for any more Covid vaccines. In the US: - Only about 2% of kids under 5 have had

• MrMan 4y ago
  this is complete bullshit - getting vaccinated isnt a matter of public trust, stop with this ridiculous propaganda to politicize medicine.
  • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
    The parent was speaking about the public's trust in institutions. I share the belief that the medical establishment's refusal to speak with nuance about covid and the vaccines did more harm than good. By laying everything out plainly, I believe more people would have gotten vaccinated. They're used to trying to distill unbelievably complex issues down to an actionable, one-sentence recommendation for everyone. For most things that's fine, but during a global pandemic people want to know a bit more.
• metadat 4y ago
  Your extrapolations from the cited metrics make no sense. People are less interested in the currently available vaccines because they don't protect against the current dominant strain (BA.5).
  • robhunter 4y ago
    Boosters have been available for nearly a year; vaccines for 5-11's for ~6 months. I think the booster rate is a reasonable sign that trust in "the science" has been lost - why do you think such a large % of people who initially "followed the science" (and got 2 doses) chose not to "follow the science" and get a booster? (Again, keeping in mind boosters have been widely available since late 2021)
    • metadat 4y ago
      • robhunter 4y ago
        What would you consider to be "taking an insane risk WRT Covid" ?
        • metadat 4y ago
          The majority of prevailing attitudes and behaviors in Utah and Texas are good examples of what I consider to be a total disregard for public health. Again, this is just me, some individual on HN who doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things.
          • robhunter 4y ago
            What are those attitudes and behaviors, exactly?
            • metadat 4y ago
              Refusing to wear a mask indoors, attending large social gatherings sans mask, not getting vaccinated, and so on. It boils down to breathing into other people's faces a lot, which is what I call "exposure".
              • Auracle 4y ago
  • ekianjo 4y ago
    > People are less interested in the currently available vaccines because they don't protect against the current dominant strain (BA.5). That's not what the CDC is saying at all.
  • wizofaus 4y ago
    I've had three jabs within the last 12 months and while eligible for a 4th, tend to feel it's worth waiting for a shot that's better tailored for protection against current variants, and I'm sure there are others. But it's not people like me that explain how many people haven't even bothered with a 2nd or 3rd jab at all (which have been available here for 9+ months).
• enobrev 4y ago
  Your % for kids under 5 isn't indicative of much. We signed up for a vaccine for my almost-3yo the day they were released and we're scheduled for next week. I know lots of parents who are also scheduled and most are after us. Just because they were made available a month ago doesn't mean anyone actually had access a month ago.
  • robhunter 4y ago
    With significantly more constrained supply, demand for 1st doses was materially higher for every other age group For instance, 5-11 year olds were up to 15% at about the same period of time after the vaccines were made available to that age group - https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/an-update-on-vaccine-roll-out-for-5-11-year-olds-in-the-u-s/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/an-upda... 15% vs. 2% is a pretty substantial drop in just ~6 months, no?
    • enobrev 4y ago
      We - as in parents - literally can't get them. They are intentionally releasing the vaccine for under 5s significantly slower. The comparison doesn't make sense. This has nothing to do with demand.
      • camdenreslink 4y ago
        This has been my experience as well. We go to a large pediatrician practice and they hadn’t even had a meeting yet to start planning to distribute to under 5 kids when it got approved. They finally just called us to see if we wanted it, but we ended up going to Rite Aid.
• sovnade 4y ago
  No official body has ever said "you will not get covid if you get the vaccine". Even the earliest trial results said "you will not be hospitalized or die if you get the vaccine", not that you won't get covid. And at the time, that was true because we were dealing with the original strain. Nothing else you said is untrue either. The vaccine drastically reduced the spread of the virus. I'm not sure what you're getting at besides spreading more disinformation. edit: i've replied several times below but everyone needs to keep in mind WHEN things were said. When the CDC said you wouldn't catch the virus in early 2021 - they were basically fully accurate because we were dealing with the original strain. Delta did not exist yet. The original vaccines were INCREDIBLY effective against the original strain - beyond anyone's wildest expectations. 100% effectiveness against death and severe hospitalization. 95% effectiveness against symptoms entirely. These levels of protection were amazing. Yes, things changed when Delta arrived, and even moreso with omicron and future subvariants, but you can't go back with hindsight and discredit what was said _at the time_.
  • robhunter 4y ago
    The president of the United States literally said "You're not going to get Covid if you've had these vaccinations" - https://youtu.be/VArXfQU--LA?t=21 https://youtu.be/VArXfQU--LA?t=21 It's likely the vaccines reduced the spread of the virus temporarily, but it certainly wasn't very long-lasting. The efficacy waned quickly, even against the original strains/Alpha/Delta - take a look at case rates in Israel (first heavily vaccinated country) through mid-late 2021 (before Omicron).
    • Terretta 4y ago
      As was known before Americans took them: 90 - 180 days useful efficacy tops. That’s why the first vax card already had a half dozen lines to record doses.
      • jmaygarden 4y ago
        I definitely did NOT know that when the vaccinations were first rolled out. Do you have a source?
• jmyeet 4y ago
  > So much damage has been done to public trust Anti-vaxxers aren't new. What we have here is an unhealthy mix of exceptionalism, anti-intellectualism and contrarianism. There is a psychological comfort in believing you' can see through the [Big Lie/Conspiracy]. Prior to Covid it was autism and vaccine. When was the last time you heard about that? Before Covid. Why? Because we've moved on to another vaccine to be skeptical about. The same thing will happen again. It goes on well before autism too. Polio and smallpox vaccines had their own oppoosition but now we somehow remember those as the "safe" vacines rather than the baselessly "unsafe" mRNA vaccines. As far as undermining public trust goes, this isn't new either. It has been the platform of the Republican Party for since at least the Reagan era to completely undermine public institutions through chronic underfunding and then use that "failure" as a justification for further funding cuts. The sad reality is that America in particular has a problem with self-identifying free-thinkers who are the most easily manipulated of all except it's not by the government: it's by church leaders, politicians, grifters (eg Andrew Wakefield in the autism vaccine era, Bob Malone in the Covid era) and self-declared "leaders" because so many lack the capability or interest for critical thinking and simply want to be told what they feel is right. Look no furhter than your own comment here: no one said the vaccine means you won't get Covid but that's a commonly pushed straw man argument. You'd know that if you remotely looked into it but I very much suspect you don't care. You've decided that's "reality" so that's that.
  • jtc331 4y ago
    You literally ignored all of the parent’s points about wildly changing promises and narratives and inconsistencies to make this for into your story about this just being about an “ unhealthy mix of exceptionalism, anti-intellectualism and contrarianism”.
    • KennyBlanken 4y ago
      The parent point's claims were a gish-gallop, and the proper response is to call it out or ignore it. The FDA and CDC never claimed that if you get vaccinated, you won't get covid. Once Biden mis-spoke during an off-the-cuff comment with a reporter.
  • 4y ago
• DennisP 4y ago
  As an American with very little appetite for catching Covid, I'll be first in line for a universal covid vaccine.
  • js2 4y ago
    Ditto. I’ve had both boosters I’m eligible for. I’ve avoided catching this damn virus until now and I have no intention of doing so. Vaccines are a modern miracle and people scoff at them. It’s shameful.
  • rayiner 4y ago
    I had it, before a vaccine was available, and it was a nothing burger, like it was for most 30-somethings. If you already have natural immunity, or 1-2 doses of the vaccine, there’s no point worry about it.
    • randomhodler84 4y ago
      No, stop staying this foolishness. In dense cities like NY, I would say at least 20% of the city is infected right now. Workers. People on the street. The subway is disgusting, there is at least one infected person per carriage coughing over everyone and refusing to wear a mask. You walk around and hear that infected lung with light mucus cough. It’s everywhere. Unless we get proper proper sterilizing vaccines, the world is going to be in a cycle of getting sick from it every few months. This is serious and infectious like nothing on earth. I am tired of the selfishness of people having an attitude that it’s not a big deal. At this point the vax we had is for something that doesn’t exist anymore. There is no long lasting natural resistance. We need new tech and widespread adoption. If people are going to go out symptomatic and infected and spread an r=17.5 virus, and there really is nothing we can do to stop them, we need much better tech to save us.
      • internet_user 4y ago
        Immunity is likely long term. There was evidence of a bone marrow compartment formation after primary infection in the early days of the pandemic, maybe even as early as 2020. It continues to be supported. Latest: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794167 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... "This work provides further evidence of sustained immune response in children up to 1 year after primary SARS-CoV-2 infection." More details on the mechanism: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34030176 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34030176 "Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans." Follow the science. There is no need to panic.
• xyzzy123 4y ago
  I've not been able to find medical evidence that the vaccine has any benefits at all for under 5s. It's been theorised to reduce severe illness and death (and it's very plausible it might!) but afaict that's never actually been measured.
  • jameshart 4y ago
    Vaccines are not only supposed to benefit the recipient. Vaccination is a public health program. If vaccinating under fives reduces the risk to preschool carers and enables us to maintain higher preschool capacity then that's a public benefit that has nothing. to do with whether it affects the individual outcomes of five year olds who contract covid.
    • josephcsible 4y ago
      This gives me Omelas vibes. Is it really a good idea to increase risk of harm (via side effects) in our youngest for "the greater good"?
      • randomhodler84 4y ago
      • jameshart 4y ago
        We’re talking about a vaccine. The risks involved are generally very small, and the benefits of a successful vaccination program are massive. On the other hand we occasionally lose an entire classroom of kids to a mass shooting, but a significant part of society tells us that we can’t do anything to restrict gun ownership to reduce that risk because apparently the ‘greater good’ of mass unrestricted gun ownership is more important.
        • ifyoubuildit 4y ago
          > We’re talking about a vaccine. We're talking about interfacing with an incredibly varied and complicated system in the human body. Just because we have implementations that have worked spledidly in the past, doesnt mean that every new instance of the class "vaccine" should immediately get to ride on the coattails of the others. Maybe these vaccines are a miracle as a lot of people believe. But this mindset of "it carries the same name as these other products, so it must be fine" is an incredibly vulnerable one to have for future drug products.
• TMWNN 4y ago
  >- Only about 2% of kids under 5 have had a 1st dose since they were introduced nearly a month ago >- Only 30% of the 5-11 year old population has had 2 doses And yet I bet we all here (in the US; I hear that other countries haven't bothered, seeing no need based on the raw statistics) have seen/heard news stories in which parents are quoted as being pleased that their little ones can finally be vaccinated. Were parents who saw no need quoted? Yeah, I didn't hear any either. Yet another example of The Narrative(TM) being pushed, regardless of the facts on the ground.
  • namecheapTA 4y ago
    I heard a PSA on the radio that said you should get your 5-13 or whatever age children vaccinated because "many children will suffer major covid complications or even death". 'Many'. No percentage. Just many.