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So it was new? The problem was covid wasn’t bad enough I guess. People would be running through walls to get a “new” Ebola vaccine, wouldn’t they. And there’

So it was new? The problem was covid wasn’t bad enough I guess. People would be running through walls to get a “new” Ebola vaccine, wouldn’t they. And there’s a number of covid vaccines that use older, well understood mechanisms that weren’t accepted either. It was political bs and the world is lucky it wasn’t worse. Pity about those than checked out, eh? But it could have been. If the switch from delta to omicron went worse instead of better things would have turned out bad. I’m not comfortable playing at such high stakes. The virus just reproduces when and how it can.

mwint 4y ago
> The problem was covid wasn’t bad enough I guess. Yep! If Covid was bad, people would have reacted as such. > But it could have been But it wasn’t! Hooray!
- ben_w 4y ago
  > If Covid was bad Six million dead. Is the threshold in that specific neurone of yours really set to a level such that any $foo "not as bad as ebola" is always failing the "if $foo was bad" test? > > But it could have been > But it wasn’t! Hooray! Same argument applies to Russian roulette. Strange game. No idea why people chose to play it, not even metaphorically.
  - dbsights 4y ago
    For covid: average age at death > average life expectancy. Really think about what that means. If we counted flu deaths like we counted COVID deaths (i.e. anyone testing positive who died, died of covid), you would have a similar, terrifying death count for the flu. But people still wouldn't be afraid of it. Not because they're stupid, but because your measurement ("six million dead"!) fails to capture the reality of the situation: the chance of a healthy under 70 dying of covid was negligible. And people behaved logically given this reality.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      > average age at death > average life expectancy. Really think about what that means. Not what you think it means, judging by the fact you consider that to be a talking point. Hint: "Life expectancy" at any age is always higher than that age, because it excludes people who died before reaching that age. > If we counted flu deaths like we counted COVID deaths (i.e. anyone testing positive who died, died of covid), That's a fairly substantial misunderstanding even in just the USA: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-are-covid-19-deaths-counted-it-s-complicated https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-are-covid-19-deaths-c... The world is much bigger than just the USA, and does not have any interest in conspiracies like that, with nations that hate each other reporting fairly similar results. But let's just pretend all those numbers are meaningless. The obvious alternative measure is excess mortality. If I went by excess mortality rate, the number would be 9.5 to 18.6 million. But not, just in case you were going to go there, from the lockdowns. Conversely, the statistics show that vaccines prevented about 14.4-19.8 million deaths. But you know what, let's ignore that too. When you say: > the chance of a healthy under 70 dying of covid was negligible. And people behaved logically given this reality. If one really think those risks count as negligible, why be afraid of the vaccines? Every vaccine anyone is allowed to offer to you is a lower risk than the disease. This is true for COVID, it is true for seasonal influenza, it is true for measles. That's how the various drug and medicine safety organisations worldwide work, what they are for, and the fundamental point of them.
      - dbsights 4y ago
        For the average age at death to be above life expectancy, virtually everyone who died "of" covid must have been elderly. And because humans don't live that long, the numbers of elderly who died must massively exceed the number of young people for that stat to skew so high. I don't know if you read your link, but it makes my point perfectly. As a practical matter, the only people that died with covid were those so frail that they would have died anyway. This has always been the case for other mild but highly transmissible illnesses, such as the flu. It seems clear to me that if it wasn't for the unprecedented manner by which these deaths were attributed, the pandemic would have been indistinguishable from a bad flu season. "Every vaccine anyone is allowed to offer to you is a lower risk than the disease." ... "That's how the various drug and medicine safety organisations worldwide work, what they are for, and the fundamental point of them." And that's why they have objectively failed. You don't account for incompetent or corrupt authorities. Or that different products, both called "vaccine" can have different risks and benefits. The covid vaccine is nothing like the measles vaccines, by any metric. "If one really think those risks count as negligible, why be afraid of the vaccines?" ... The risk of covid being negligible puts an upper limit on the potential benefit of the vaccine, but says nothing about it's safety. The risk of the vaccine is not zero, and for certain groups, ie. Young men, is quite significant (and no, not exceeded by covid). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z#Sec14 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z#Sec14

mwint 4y ago

> The problem was covid wasn’t bad enough I guess. Yep! If Covid was bad, people would have reacted as such. > But it could have been But it wasn’t! Hooray!

ben_w 4y ago
> If Covid was bad Six million dead. Is the threshold in that specific neurone of yours really set to a level such that any $foo "not as bad as ebola" is always failing the "if $foo was bad" test? > > But it could have been > But it wasn’t! Hooray! Same argument applies to Russian roulette. Strange game. No idea why people chose to play it, not even metaphorically.
- dbsights 4y ago
  For covid: average age at death > average life expectancy. Really think about what that means. If we counted flu deaths like we counted COVID deaths (i.e. anyone testing positive who died, died of covid), you would have a similar, terrifying death count for the flu. But people still wouldn't be afraid of it. Not because they're stupid, but because your measurement ("six million dead"!) fails to capture the reality of the situation: the chance of a healthy under 70 dying of covid was negligible. And people behaved logically given this reality.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > average age at death > average life expectancy. Really think about what that means. Not what you think it means, judging by the fact you consider that to be a talking point. Hint: "Life expectancy" at any age is always higher than that age, because it excludes people who died before reaching that age. > If we counted flu deaths like we counted COVID deaths (i.e. anyone testing positive who died, died of covid), That's a fairly substantial misunderstanding even in just the USA: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-are-covid-19-deaths-counted-it-s-complicated https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-are-covid-19-deaths-c... The world is much bigger than just the USA, and does not have any interest in conspiracies like that, with nations that hate each other reporting fairly similar results. But let's just pretend all those numbers are meaningless. The obvious alternative measure is excess mortality. If I went by excess mortality rate, the number would be 9.5 to 18.6 million. But not, just in case you were going to go there, from the lockdowns. Conversely, the statistics show that vaccines prevented about 14.4-19.8 million deaths. But you know what, let's ignore that too. When you say: > the chance of a healthy under 70 dying of covid was negligible. And people behaved logically given this reality. If one really think those risks count as negligible, why be afraid of the vaccines? Every vaccine anyone is allowed to offer to you is a lower risk than the disease. This is true for COVID, it is true for seasonal influenza, it is true for measles. That's how the various drug and medicine safety organisations worldwide work, what they are for, and the fundamental point of them.
    - dbsights 4y ago
      For the average age at death to be above life expectancy, virtually everyone who died "of" covid must have been elderly. And because humans don't live that long, the numbers of elderly who died must massively exceed the number of young people for that stat to skew so high. I don't know if you read your link, but it makes my point perfectly. As a practical matter, the only people that died with covid were those so frail that they would have died anyway. This has always been the case for other mild but highly transmissible illnesses, such as the flu. It seems clear to me that if it wasn't for the unprecedented manner by which these deaths were attributed, the pandemic would have been indistinguishable from a bad flu season. "Every vaccine anyone is allowed to offer to you is a lower risk than the disease." ... "That's how the various drug and medicine safety organisations worldwide work, what they are for, and the fundamental point of them." And that's why they have objectively failed. You don't account for incompetent or corrupt authorities. Or that different products, both called "vaccine" can have different risks and benefits. The covid vaccine is nothing like the measles vaccines, by any metric. "If one really think those risks count as negligible, why be afraid of the vaccines?" ... The risk of covid being negligible puts an upper limit on the potential benefit of the vaccine, but says nothing about it's safety. The risk of the vaccine is not zero, and for certain groups, ie. Young men, is quite significant (and no, not exceeded by covid). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z#Sec14 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z#Sec14