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A question for vaccine skeptics: For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complication

A question for vaccine skeptics: For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? There seems to be a lot of "aha I knew it" whenever any side-effect of the vaccine is found, but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common?

Mikeb85 4y ago
> but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? You forgot to account for the risk of getting the virus. If you choose to get the vaccine, the probability is 1. But what's the probability of getting Covid? Definitely less than 1. For certain age groups (young men), the risk of complications * probability of getting the vaccine (1) was more than the risk of complications from COVID * the probability of getting it (let's say 0.25 or so). Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people...
- librish 4y ago
  COVID is much less dangerous to younger people but there are still very real risks involved, especially non-lethal ones. Assuming a 25% probability of catching it, how are you coming to the conclusion that the risk of the vaccine is higher?
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    > risk of the vaccine is higher? I said within a certain demographic... For old people, the vaccine is obviously worth it. Boys/men from age 10-30, probably not. Hell, a bunch of EU countries literally stopped giving young people the Moderna vaccine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-france-restrict-modernas-covid-vaccine-for-under-30s-over-rare-heart-risk-despite-surging-cases/?sh=156c85e32a8a https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-f...
    - librish 4y ago
      Yes, I'm asking within the demographic of say 20-50 how are you coming to the conclusion that the risk is not worth it?
      - Mikeb85 4y ago
        The same way multiple European governments determined the risk isn't worth it...
- usefulcat 4y ago
  > COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... In the short term yes, in the long term, that is not known.
  - putnambr 4y ago
    In addition, ask any young person involved in sports how catching COVID has affected their training and performance. For mostly sedentary people it might feel like catching a bad cold and then recovering. If you're actually consistently pushing your lungs to their max there's definitely long-lasting (maybe not long-term) damage there.
    - addingadimensio 4y ago
      Covid hasnt infected the lower respiratory tract since what Delta? come on keep up with the strains.
  - addingadimensio 4y ago
    - usefulcat 4y ago
      That's actually a perfectly reasonable point. It's a shame you chose such an aggressive tone; as a result, many people will probably dismiss your comment outright.
      - addingadimensio 4y ago
  - ejb999 4y ago
    >>In the short term yes, in the long term, that is not known. Same can be said about the vaccine. The full story has not been written yet. Investigate everything, make it available to the public, let people decide for themselves what to put in their body.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... Having seen the impact of covid on young family members and others in my extended social circles, I believe that there's a long tail of effects that we won't be able to see the full picture of for years to come. There's a lot more that should be considered in the decision than just risk of death.
  - seydor 4y ago
    But the vaccine does not help with those effects, and importantly it doesnt prevent infection.
  - mikem170 4y ago
    I'm a numbers guy. I happened to just stumble onto this article [0], summarizing a study on the vaccines and long covid: > Compared to an unvaccinated individual, the risk of long Covid in a fully vaccinated individual was cut by only about 15 percent, the study found. > Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Covid Activity Rehabilitation Program in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved with the new study, said the results were not “too surprising.” > “We know that the majority of folks with long Covid have not had severe infections,” he said. Not very much help against long covid on average, nothing like the protection against hospitalizations in vulnerable populations. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccines-offer-little-protection-long-covid-study-finds-rcna30467 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccines-offer-li...
  - CadmiumYellow 4y ago
    Something I've been wondering about: has anybody tried to separate out the effects of the pandemic itself from the symptoms of long covid? So many of the symptoms of long covid are incredibly nonspecific. I believe there was a study on long covid patients that found that the only long covid symptom that had a significant correlation with actually having tested positive for covid was loss of smell and taste. There is a lot of evidence that social isolation and sedentary lifestyles are detrimental to our health and we now live in a world where loads of people barely left the house or spoke to anyone other than their immediate family members for the better part of two years. We're seeing widespread effects throughout society in everything from education to crime to the amount of violent incidents on airplanes. It's likely that millions of people who do not have long covid are currently in some form of mental health crisis related to the pandemic. Overdose deaths and suicides are up. I wonder how many people started the pandemic with no major covid risk factor and now have a risk factor such as obesity or diabetes that can be directly linked to the psychosocial effects of the pandemic. I'm not suggesting that long covid doesn't exist, but I wonder how much of that long tail of effects can actually be causally linked to covid infection (obviously not talking about things like lung damage, though I do wonder if stress and isolation could have affected previously healthy people's immune systems). My personal experience with mental health issues suggests that they can have severe and wide-ranging physical effects that are as bad as any disease.
- geraneum 4y ago
  > If you choose to get the vaccine, the probability is 1 Curiously, probability of what specifically is 1 in that case? I am assuming by 1 you mean 100%, right?
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    SMH
- putnambr 4y ago
  From OC: > wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? For certain demographics the probability of getting infected might be that low, but at least in every social young adult I know, the risk is averaged to well over 1.0. I've been infected twice, before and after the jab, and in both cases the infection was worse (months of recovery, VO2Max reduction) than the acute vaccine side effects (weekend of feeling shitty). Pre-vaccine I'd say it took around 5 months to fully feel recovered, e.g. able to run a 4-miler without feeling like passing out, where-as post-vaccine and prior infection I was well recovered at the 6-week mark.
  - addingadimensio 4y ago
    Wow that’s so scientific considering those are completely different strains of Covid and one infection you got immune naive and one you got after an infection and a vaccination. It’s so clear as mud
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    > but at least in every social young adult I know, the risk is averaged to well over 1.0. But the rate of being vaccinated is also over 1.0, since people keep getting boosters.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  It's been only 3 years and basically everyone I know has had COVID, some more than once. I don't think it's significantly less than 1.
  - brianshaler 4y ago
    Given there is likely a correlation between behaviors to reduce likelihood of infection (avoiding crowds, properly wearing effective masks) and willingness to get vaccinated, I would wager the odds of catching covid at least once would be elevated among people opposed to vaccination.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    https://time.com/6170735/how-many-people-have-had-covid-19/ https://time.com/6170735/how-many-people-have-had-covid-19/ It's 60%. Probably. Meanwhile most vaccinated people have had 2-4 shots. Also keep in mind immunity doesn't last forever, so you need to balance the risk of the shot within a certain timeframe versus the risk of Covid times the risk of complications within the same timeframe. You also can't compare the lifetime risk of Covid versus only 1 shot, both occur within a timeframe since immunity from the shot isn't forever.
    - CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
      60% of the population over a 5 month period had detectable levels of antibodies in their blood, so it's at least 60%. IIRC they are only detectable for a few months (but that maybe also depend on the way of testing I don't know) which would means it's closer to 100% than to 60%. The risk comparison is indeed not trivial, but I think it's a safe bet that you're going to get covid.
      - Izkata 4y ago
        > but that maybe also depend on the way of testing I don't know There's ~3 possibilities after an infection happens: * A person's innate immune system quickly fights off the virus. This is a generic set of defenses in our bodies that are always active, and if they succeed then you don't create antibodies in the first place. * Detectable antibodies, meaning your innate immune system wasn't enough and your adaptive immune system took care of it. * Antibodies have faded and are no longer detectable. You can still do a T-Cell test (more costly, may take longer?) to find out if you can rapidly create new antibodies, which would mean you're still good despite no longer having antibodies. There's also the issue of the type of antibodies. The mRNA vaccines are only coding for the spike protein, so your body only learns to fight that - but the virus has mutated away from what's currently in the vaccines. Natural/recovered immunity creates a variety of antibodies that work against different parts of the virus, so that's still effective even against "vaccine escape" variants.
- aeternum 4y ago
  Yes and it shouldn't just be risk of getting the virus, as it looks like the ability of the virus to migrate to the heart also matters. With environmental infections, it's possible that most people fight the virus within other parts of the body, with the vaccine it looks like the immune response occurred in the heart for many in this study, specifically right heart, possibly due to proximity or accidental intravascular injection: >we recorded inflammatory foci predominantly in the right heart, which may suggest a gradual blood-stream derived dilution effect and based on this finding it is at least tempting to speculate that inadvertent intravascular vaccine injection may be contributive
- brianshaler 4y ago
  > let's say 0.25 or so Where did you get this data? > Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... What are the top 3 leading causes of health-related deaths in your choice of demographic (15-24? 25-49?) in your choice of 2020 or 2021?
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    > What are the top 3 leading causes of health-related deaths in your choice of demographic (15-24? 25-49?) in your choice of 2020 or 2021? Covid was only #3 for all age groups in the USA during the pandemic (and remember, old people are the mostly likely to die at any given point, because, well, they're old). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Meanwhile, Covid is far behind accidents, suicide, drug overdoses and homicide for young people: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-trends-in-older-adolescent-(15-to-19-years)-and-young-adult-(20-to-24-years)-mortality https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-...
    - brianshaler 4y ago
      I apologize, when I said your choice of demographic I meant your choice of demographic that encompasses "young" as per the topic of your original comment. Yes, when including the elderly, cancer and heart disease are greater causes of health-related deaths. Is COVID-19 not the #1 health-related cause of death for "young" people? > accidents, suicide, drug overdoses and homicide Not long ago this discussion was about health risks, such as infectious diseases or medical complications. But yes, young people can be pretty reckless. We were doing arithmetic, such as multiplying the risk of myocarditis and hitherto uncorrelated medical complications by 1.0, and then a number that is likely several orders of magnitude larger (death by COVID, not even the much, much more likely disablement of "long covid") by a number you erroneously claimed was 0.25 and was perhaps around 0.6 almost a year ago (anti-body study, 9/2021-2/2022).
- Daishiman 4y ago
  > Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... I have friends in their early 30s who still haven't recovered their sense of smell. Knoew a 25-year-old who spent 4 weeks with terrible symptoms. I'm a marathon runner and lift and in my early 30s and this disease kicked the shit out of me and had 4 with reduced physical function. It is very obviously worse than the worst flus almost everyone had and the flu is sufficiently dangerous that it has a nontrivial effect in human quality of life.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  You forgot to add in the risks of getting COVID and being vaccinated. Every time anyone "does the math" on this somehow they count the vaccine as having 100% efficacy, which is an obvious lie. Also, if you choose to get the vaccine, then the multiplier for vaccine risks isn't 1, it's 2, or 4, or 6, however many times you get the vaccine.
torstenvl 4y ago
> to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid No. Reasonable people make choices all the time that don't bear out under a cost-risk-benefit analysis like you propose. Those choices are still reasonable, despite perhaps not being strictly rational. And certainly not as a matter of public policy. The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it. There is far, far greater danger in society forcing issues of bodily autonomy to a vote than there is in someone eating too much sugar.
- librish 4y ago
  My question wasn't about public policy or mandates, I'm asking what data an individual is looking at to come to the conclusion that not getting vaccinated is the right choice.
  - kyleyeats 4y ago
    I swore off getting it after the very first instance I heard of someone getting covid after the vaccine. That was my only data point.
- eftychis 4y ago
  The choices are acceptable, not reasonable. At least by the strict definition of reasonable -- we seem to be changing that definition similar to the world "literally." > The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it. This is a slippery slope easily. People should be given the choice. And as people we have also the choice to judge people on their choice's results. Especially if it causes other people to die. Right now we have failed as humanity at least 6,637,512 people and counting.
- delecti 4y ago
  The comment you replied to didn't mention mandates of any sort. It started with: > For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine "Basically everyone should get the vaccine" is a meaningfully different statement from "we should force people to get the vaccine". Also, whether a person can be reasonable while making unreasonable choices isn't really the point either. The most reasonable option on this particular choice for the overwhelming majority pretty clearly seems to be to get the vaccine. It is similarly disingenuous to move the goal posts from "the most reasonable decision is to get the vaccine" to "you are an unreasonable person to not get the vaccine".
chedca21 4y ago
The risk: benefit analysis that supports vaccination is considering the earliest standards of care we had which were criminally misguided - no steroids allowed, plug patient respiration up with a machine to not spread the virus , These protocols are what killed people mostly and ultimately they are what is being used to justify universal recommendations for a vaccine.
bobobob420 4y ago
Im not a skeptic but has to do with the mandate. Has to do with distrust in government, corporations, etc. not fully honest conversations about vaccine etc ..
CodeWriter23 4y ago
No I don’t need to balance anything based on your criteria. I and I alone decide what goes into my body. Anyone who is scared to walk outside and face hundreds of thousands of pathogens on a daily basis should remain at home. If you want a vaccine, go ahead and get one.
- pg314 4y ago
  Thankfully your attitude wasn't prevalent in previous generations or polio and smallpox would still be rampant.
  - CodeWriter23 4y ago
    Three things a) we have VAPP now b) polio is not eradicated, check the Global Polio Eradication Initiative website on those. c) in a case where diagnosis was actually improved in the early years of the polio vaccine they discovered they had been dealing with two things with the same symptoms a all along: paralytic polio and Guillean-Barre syndrome. Determining the respective rates of both is an exercise left to the reader.
LarryMullins 4y ago
> For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? Reasonable is subjective. I got the covid vaccine and had no concern for side effects. But I, like most people, don't bother getting the flu shot every year and I think that's perfectly reasonable despite me having no qualms about side effects. I simply don't care about the flu. Not getting the flu shot is one less reoccurring chore in my life that I don't have to bother with.
- mint2 4y ago
  Seat belts are a daily chore too?
gfodor 4y ago
Depends on who and when. The idea of vaccinating my young kids in late 2022 is an absurd proposition to me personally - and if the state mandated it, we would leave. This will change once we understand what is happening with these fatalities and correct it.
adamiscool8 4y ago
According to my governments stats, the COVID-19 hospitalization rate for my age + health cohort, when modestly adjusted for their known undercount of cases, is less than 1 in 3000. Also by their stats, more than 1 in 2000 4-dose mRNA vaccine series have resulted in a serious adverse event reported by a health professional. Then, factoring in the additional risk of acquiescing bodily autonomy to an opaque bureaucracy — considering what herding behaviors have been blatantly manufactured over the last few years, and the conflicting interests involved. I think declining is a very reasonable choice.
- Izkata 4y ago
  Don't forget natural/recovered immunity, which people seem to finally be considering again. For a lot of people any vaccination was unnecessary risk for no reward.
- librish 4y ago
  What constitutes a 'serious adverse event' in this data? Do you mind linking the source? Having a 1 in 3000 chance of getting so sick you need to be hospitalized seems quite bad.
  - manwe150 4y ago
    In case they don't answer, I would guess they are referring to VAERS data, and some random guy who once claimed it underreports everything by 40x. This is not logistically plausible (where would you hide 40x more patients than expected arriving at hospitals?), and I have seen some recent studies suggest that the underreporting factor is actually <1x (meaning it is overreported) when doing statistically random sampling. But that does not stop people from repeating the claim ad nauseam.
    - adamiscool8 4y ago
      In Canada, all reports to our Public Health Infobase must be made by a health care professional. I do suspect underreporting, given social and collegial pressure on practitioners to not undermine vaccination efforts, but I accept the given stats linked above at face value for the purposes of my model.
pexabit 4y ago
- Daishiman 4y ago
  You are so astoundingly wrong that I'm just glad people like you get coerced into getting vaccinated so society doesn't have to live your terrible risk assessments.
  - pexabit 4y ago
    What is your back of the envelope math here? Clearly, the vaccine does not prevent infection. There is no evidence it reduces the incidence of harmful sequelae following infection. So how does this add up to support mandatory vaccination for young men?
    - Daishiman 4y ago
      There are tons of papers showing the exact opposite of what you said if actually cared to look.
      - pexabit 4y ago
        Going to be a little hard to credibly show the vaccine protects against infection when everyone is getting infected. Knowing whether someone is vaccinated against COVID is not going to help you predict whether they have been or will be infected. Knowing whether someone had the smallpox vaccine is going to help you predict whether they had been or would become infected. See the difference?
daneel_w 4y ago
Every person I've asked (here in Sweden) who opted out of COVID-19 vaccination made their decision based on one year of case data covering the two first waves, which to them concluded that statistically they were at no risk based on their age and health status. Despite taking e.g. tetanus boosters, TBC vaccine etc., they are still being referred to as "antivaxxers".
- librish 4y ago
  At no risk for what?
  - mint2 4y ago
    Since I didn’t know Sweden was a nation entirely of stats experts, perhaps the poster meant no risk of objective, statistically sound analysis?
    - daneel_w 4y ago
      I don't know what stupid assumptions you're making, so I'll fill you in: The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has been producing thorough public statistics over the situation in Sweden ever since the COVID outbreak began. The statistics are accumulated on a weekly basis and cover the number of confirmed infections, number of mild and severe hospitalizations, and the number of deaths. All of it is broken down in age groups as well as grouped according to prior underlying health concerns of the patients. The statistics accumulated up to the same week the general availability vaccinations began - covering two waves and approx. 14 months of COVID - revealed that for their age group (age 35-45) and with no known underlying health problems, there had been a total of 11 deaths. It's fully understandable that they don't feel threatened by this virus.
      - mint2 4y ago
        > number of mild and severe hospitalizations And what about those?
addingadimensio 4y ago
Everyone got the vaccine and everyone still got covid. you have to get the vaccine and then covid and then more vaccine and then more Covid and you’re saying it’s clear to you what the benefit risk is in this jumble of vaccinations and Covid vaccines really you know what it is you’re sure you read the paper of the research it’s out there for everyone to just look at?
bakoo 4y ago
> Aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? There is no doubt that we'd have a lot more deaths without the vaccines. I suspect that is true for at least some of the lockdowns too. In my experience, people aren't very good at assessing risks. Actively doing something that comes with a certain risk is often perceived as being more dangerous than passively hoping to avoid what is objectively known to be the greater risk. If those risks are then contested or associated with a high degree of uncertainty, making an active choice often becomes a question of deferring the decision to someone you really trust. If you don't trust anyone, you're not likely to do anything. An anecdote - I know a few people who didn't get the vaccine, or got it a lot later than everyone else, and more often than not they have had bad health care experiences in the past. When you've been on the receiving end of one or more mistakes of that kind, it isn't difficult to understand how waiting to see what happens seems like the smarter choice.
ren_engineer 4y ago
>For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? a huge chunk of the population already got covid during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, so that's not really a factor at this point. The risk of getting covid for them is already baked into the calculation because they got it when there was no other option. They can now decide whether the additional risk of the vaccine is worth it you can't even make the case for mandates based on "stopping the spread" anymore because the vaccines failed at that as well, so it's no longer a public health issue and becomes a personal health decision. Or at least it should be
- seydor 4y ago
  > during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, That's not true anymore. Recent variants dont induce a lot of immunity that s why reinfections are common. In fact the opposite is true in some cases https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1841 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1841 That said, the vaccines don't prevent infection either
- acdha 4y ago
  > a huge chunk of the population already got covid during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, so that's not really a factor at this point. The new variants are effective at evading immunity from earlier variants so, no, that's not moot. Even without evasion you'd still need to consider how quickly immunity wanes, too. The vaccines are holding up well for avoiding hospitalization but you're still looking at multiple per year given how much COVID has been mutating. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-covid-wave https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-covid-wave
seydor 4y ago
I took 3 doses of vaccine but it is no longer effective at preventing infections. Studies that keep coming out show that Covid can have a lot of damaging consequences every time you get infected and they accumulate (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3). I have a job and lifestyle that allows me to limit crowded spaces by a lot during wintertime. I will try to avoid getting covid ever again as much as possible, and the vaccine doesn't help much in that. I think the danger from vaccine is very small, but , as in everything, i want to wait a few years before i can trust it. But to those that plan to get immunized by simply getting Covid again I 'd say "good luck" because they are going to need it
josephcsible 4y ago
> multiplied by the risk of getting covid Wouldn't you actually multiply by (the risk of getting covid without the vaccine, minus the risk of getting covid with the vaccine)?
puffoflogic 4y ago
> For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? That would not be a correct comparison, because the vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid. The risks to balance are: A) The risk of myocarditis and other fatal and non-fatal side-effects from the vaccine, TIMES how many times you get the vaccine, PLUS the cumulative risks of COVID infections over time (which you can get despite being "vaccinated"). B) Just the risks of COVID infections over time. A is strictly more dangerous than B no matter what the risks of COVID are. Every comment saying, "oh but COVID can cause X risk of death and Y risk of myocarditis and blah blah blah" is completely irrelevant, because all of these risks accrue just as much to the vaccinated. Even if the vaccine is, say, 15% effective, which is very generous given the evidence, then that means that if the risks of the vaccine are 15% as much as the risks of COVID, then (A) is still more dangerous. The risks of the vaccine are more than 15% the risks of COVID, as the evidence is piling up. Then there's the little fact that the vaccinated are slightly more likely to be reinfected with COVID than the unvaccinated. But the studies on this are still being suppressed, so you can do the math without it and still come up with vaccination being more dangerous for much of the population.
stainablesteel 4y ago
yeah that's reasonable, and a perfect way to do it is to go by age groups covid is hurting/killing people who are weak, elderly, and immunocompromised. So covid is the bigger worry here, they should get vaccinated young kids mostly don't even notice they have covid, and young people in general, ~<30 y/o, don't have any issues from covid. So the vaccine is a bigger risk, and the natural immunity they gain from getting the disease is more advantageous than the vaccine ever would be for their demographic
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> A question for vaccine skeptics: I don't think it's the correct question to ask. I've got two Pfizer shots but I know many vaccine skeptics who refused to take the shots and they aren't skeptics because of the risk/reward ratio of the vaccine vs covid. They're skeptics because the politicians and the media have repeated a great many different lies during this entire fiasco. For a start if people were allowed to discuss the lab leak hypothesis without being called moon-landing deniers then maybe there'd have been way less skeptics. It's the attitude of the politicians and the mainstream media that created the skeptics. To me what the mainstream media were publishing about the Covid-19 during the outbreak and the first lockdown was approximately as correct as what they were publishing about SBF/FTX before his ponzi was exposed: a narrative they were fed.
sbaiddn 4y ago
Honest question: why does this matter to you? The vaccine doesn't stop transmission, that's widely acknowledged now, and can't establish herd immunity (unless you plan to vaccinate deer). It doesn't affect you at all so why waste time thinking about others' cost-benefit analysis? We all have our reasons. They're all unique and inevitably personal. For my part, standing my ground and resisting the pressure to get jabbed is one of my proudest achievements.
dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
>but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? No they are not well COVID in my view. To me the complications that are supposedly attributed to covid are those of respiratory illnesses that have existed long before COVID came on the scene. In fact I have my doubts whether the whole COVID thing is a brand new disease. As someone pointed out there are bigger issues: like trust in pharmaceutical companies and current science medical science. In my current view medical science is very primitive, while putting up a front of sophistication and accuracy, while being very crude. And just so that you know that I'm not a perpetual skeptic, I will go along with Einstein's quotes: “One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
adamrezich 4y ago
control group here: I'm doing fine, and have been doing fine all along, just like every single other person I know who is also in the control group. I'm profoundly uninterested in publicly debating my internal decision-making process. though I am interested in hearing from anyone else in the control group to see how they're doing.

Mikeb85 4y ago

> but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? You forgot to account for the risk of getting the virus. If you choose to get the vaccine, the probability is 1. But what's the probability of getting Covid? Definitely less than 1. For certain age groups (young men), the risk of complications * probability of getting the vaccine (1) was more than the risk of complications from COVID * the probability of getting it (let's say 0.25 or so). Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people...

librish 4y ago
COVID is much less dangerous to younger people but there are still very real risks involved, especially non-lethal ones. Assuming a 25% probability of catching it, how are you coming to the conclusion that the risk of the vaccine is higher?
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > risk of the vaccine is higher? I said within a certain demographic... For old people, the vaccine is obviously worth it. Boys/men from age 10-30, probably not. Hell, a bunch of EU countries literally stopped giving young people the Moderna vaccine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-france-restrict-modernas-covid-vaccine-for-under-30s-over-rare-heart-risk-despite-surging-cases/?sh=156c85e32a8a https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-f...
  - librish 4y ago
    Yes, I'm asking within the demographic of say 20-50 how are you coming to the conclusion that the risk is not worth it?
    - Mikeb85 4y ago
      The same way multiple European governments determined the risk isn't worth it...
usefulcat 4y ago
> COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... In the short term yes, in the long term, that is not known.
- putnambr 4y ago
  In addition, ask any young person involved in sports how catching COVID has affected their training and performance. For mostly sedentary people it might feel like catching a bad cold and then recovering. If you're actually consistently pushing your lungs to their max there's definitely long-lasting (maybe not long-term) damage there.
  - addingadimensio 4y ago
    Covid hasnt infected the lower respiratory tract since what Delta? come on keep up with the strains.
- addingadimensio 4y ago
  - usefulcat 4y ago
    That's actually a perfectly reasonable point. It's a shame you chose such an aggressive tone; as a result, many people will probably dismiss your comment outright.
    - addingadimensio 4y ago
- ejb999 4y ago
  >>In the short term yes, in the long term, that is not known. Same can be said about the vaccine. The full story has not been written yet. Investigate everything, make it available to the public, let people decide for themselves what to put in their body.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
> Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... Having seen the impact of covid on young family members and others in my extended social circles, I believe that there's a long tail of effects that we won't be able to see the full picture of for years to come. There's a lot more that should be considered in the decision than just risk of death.
- seydor 4y ago
  But the vaccine does not help with those effects, and importantly it doesnt prevent infection.
- mikem170 4y ago
  I'm a numbers guy. I happened to just stumble onto this article [0], summarizing a study on the vaccines and long covid: > Compared to an unvaccinated individual, the risk of long Covid in a fully vaccinated individual was cut by only about 15 percent, the study found. > Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Covid Activity Rehabilitation Program in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved with the new study, said the results were not “too surprising.” > “We know that the majority of folks with long Covid have not had severe infections,” he said. Not very much help against long covid on average, nothing like the protection against hospitalizations in vulnerable populations. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccines-offer-little-protection-long-covid-study-finds-rcna30467 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccines-offer-li...
- CadmiumYellow 4y ago
  Something I've been wondering about: has anybody tried to separate out the effects of the pandemic itself from the symptoms of long covid? So many of the symptoms of long covid are incredibly nonspecific. I believe there was a study on long covid patients that found that the only long covid symptom that had a significant correlation with actually having tested positive for covid was loss of smell and taste. There is a lot of evidence that social isolation and sedentary lifestyles are detrimental to our health and we now live in a world where loads of people barely left the house or spoke to anyone other than their immediate family members for the better part of two years. We're seeing widespread effects throughout society in everything from education to crime to the amount of violent incidents on airplanes. It's likely that millions of people who do not have long covid are currently in some form of mental health crisis related to the pandemic. Overdose deaths and suicides are up. I wonder how many people started the pandemic with no major covid risk factor and now have a risk factor such as obesity or diabetes that can be directly linked to the psychosocial effects of the pandemic. I'm not suggesting that long covid doesn't exist, but I wonder how much of that long tail of effects can actually be causally linked to covid infection (obviously not talking about things like lung damage, though I do wonder if stress and isolation could have affected previously healthy people's immune systems). My personal experience with mental health issues suggests that they can have severe and wide-ranging physical effects that are as bad as any disease.
geraneum 4y ago
> If you choose to get the vaccine, the probability is 1 Curiously, probability of what specifically is 1 in that case? I am assuming by 1 you mean 100%, right?
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  SMH
putnambr 4y ago
From OC: > wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? For certain demographics the probability of getting infected might be that low, but at least in every social young adult I know, the risk is averaged to well over 1.0. I've been infected twice, before and after the jab, and in both cases the infection was worse (months of recovery, VO2Max reduction) than the acute vaccine side effects (weekend of feeling shitty). Pre-vaccine I'd say it took around 5 months to fully feel recovered, e.g. able to run a 4-miler without feeling like passing out, where-as post-vaccine and prior infection I was well recovered at the 6-week mark.
- addingadimensio 4y ago
  Wow that’s so scientific considering those are completely different strains of Covid and one infection you got immune naive and one you got after an infection and a vaccination. It’s so clear as mud
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  > but at least in every social young adult I know, the risk is averaged to well over 1.0. But the rate of being vaccinated is also over 1.0, since people keep getting boosters.
CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
It's been only 3 years and basically everyone I know has had COVID, some more than once. I don't think it's significantly less than 1.
- brianshaler 4y ago
  Given there is likely a correlation between behaviors to reduce likelihood of infection (avoiding crowds, properly wearing effective masks) and willingness to get vaccinated, I would wager the odds of catching covid at least once would be elevated among people opposed to vaccination.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  https://time.com/6170735/how-many-people-have-had-covid-19/ https://time.com/6170735/how-many-people-have-had-covid-19/ It's 60%. Probably. Meanwhile most vaccinated people have had 2-4 shots. Also keep in mind immunity doesn't last forever, so you need to balance the risk of the shot within a certain timeframe versus the risk of Covid times the risk of complications within the same timeframe. You also can't compare the lifetime risk of Covid versus only 1 shot, both occur within a timeframe since immunity from the shot isn't forever.
  - CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
    60% of the population over a 5 month period had detectable levels of antibodies in their blood, so it's at least 60%. IIRC they are only detectable for a few months (but that maybe also depend on the way of testing I don't know) which would means it's closer to 100% than to 60%. The risk comparison is indeed not trivial, but I think it's a safe bet that you're going to get covid.
    - Izkata 4y ago
      > but that maybe also depend on the way of testing I don't know There's ~3 possibilities after an infection happens: * A person's innate immune system quickly fights off the virus. This is a generic set of defenses in our bodies that are always active, and if they succeed then you don't create antibodies in the first place. * Detectable antibodies, meaning your innate immune system wasn't enough and your adaptive immune system took care of it. * Antibodies have faded and are no longer detectable. You can still do a T-Cell test (more costly, may take longer?) to find out if you can rapidly create new antibodies, which would mean you're still good despite no longer having antibodies. There's also the issue of the type of antibodies. The mRNA vaccines are only coding for the spike protein, so your body only learns to fight that - but the virus has mutated away from what's currently in the vaccines. Natural/recovered immunity creates a variety of antibodies that work against different parts of the virus, so that's still effective even against "vaccine escape" variants.
aeternum 4y ago
Yes and it shouldn't just be risk of getting the virus, as it looks like the ability of the virus to migrate to the heart also matters. With environmental infections, it's possible that most people fight the virus within other parts of the body, with the vaccine it looks like the immune response occurred in the heart for many in this study, specifically right heart, possibly due to proximity or accidental intravascular injection: >we recorded inflammatory foci predominantly in the right heart, which may suggest a gradual blood-stream derived dilution effect and based on this finding it is at least tempting to speculate that inadvertent intravascular vaccine injection may be contributive
brianshaler 4y ago
> let's say 0.25 or so Where did you get this data? > Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... What are the top 3 leading causes of health-related deaths in your choice of demographic (15-24? 25-49?) in your choice of 2020 or 2021?
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > What are the top 3 leading causes of health-related deaths in your choice of demographic (15-24? 25-49?) in your choice of 2020 or 2021? Covid was only #3 for all age groups in the USA during the pandemic (and remember, old people are the mostly likely to die at any given point, because, well, they're old). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Meanwhile, Covid is far behind accidents, suicide, drug overdoses and homicide for young people: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-trends-in-older-adolescent-(15-to-19-years)-and-young-adult-(20-to-24-years)-mortality https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-...
  - brianshaler 4y ago
    I apologize, when I said your choice of demographic I meant your choice of demographic that encompasses "young" as per the topic of your original comment. Yes, when including the elderly, cancer and heart disease are greater causes of health-related deaths. Is COVID-19 not the #1 health-related cause of death for "young" people? > accidents, suicide, drug overdoses and homicide Not long ago this discussion was about health risks, such as infectious diseases or medical complications. But yes, young people can be pretty reckless. We were doing arithmetic, such as multiplying the risk of myocarditis and hitherto uncorrelated medical complications by 1.0, and then a number that is likely several orders of magnitude larger (death by COVID, not even the much, much more likely disablement of "long covid") by a number you erroneously claimed was 0.25 and was perhaps around 0.6 almost a year ago (anti-body study, 9/2021-2/2022).
Daishiman 4y ago
> Remember, COVID hasn't been shown to be particularly dangerous to young people... I have friends in their early 30s who still haven't recovered their sense of smell. Knoew a 25-year-old who spent 4 weeks with terrible symptoms. I'm a marathon runner and lift and in my early 30s and this disease kicked the shit out of me and had 4 with reduced physical function. It is very obviously worse than the worst flus almost everyone had and the flu is sufficiently dangerous that it has a nontrivial effect in human quality of life.
puffoflogic 4y ago
You forgot to add in the risks of getting COVID and being vaccinated. Every time anyone "does the math" on this somehow they count the vaccine as having 100% efficacy, which is an obvious lie. Also, if you choose to get the vaccine, then the multiplier for vaccine risks isn't 1, it's 2, or 4, or 6, however many times you get the vaccine.

torstenvl 4y ago

> to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid No. Reasonable people make choices all the time that don't bear out under a cost-risk-benefit analysis like you propose. Those choices are still reasonable, despite perhaps not being strictly rational. And certainly not as a matter of public policy. The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it. There is far, far greater danger in society forcing issues of bodily autonomy to a vote than there is in someone eating too much sugar.

librish 4y ago
My question wasn't about public policy or mandates, I'm asking what data an individual is looking at to come to the conclusion that not getting vaccinated is the right choice.
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  I swore off getting it after the very first instance I heard of someone getting covid after the vaccine. That was my only data point.
eftychis 4y ago
The choices are acceptable, not reasonable. At least by the strict definition of reasonable -- we seem to be changing that definition similar to the world "literally." > The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it. This is a slippery slope easily. People should be given the choice. And as people we have also the choice to judge people on their choice's results. Especially if it causes other people to die. Right now we have failed as humanity at least 6,637,512 people and counting.
delecti 4y ago
The comment you replied to didn't mention mandates of any sort. It started with: > For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine "Basically everyone should get the vaccine" is a meaningfully different statement from "we should force people to get the vaccine". Also, whether a person can be reasonable while making unreasonable choices isn't really the point either. The most reasonable option on this particular choice for the overwhelming majority pretty clearly seems to be to get the vaccine. It is similarly disingenuous to move the goal posts from "the most reasonable decision is to get the vaccine" to "you are an unreasonable person to not get the vaccine".

chedca21 4y ago

The risk: benefit analysis that supports vaccination is considering the earliest standards of care we had which were criminally misguided - no steroids allowed, plug patient respiration up with a machine to not spread the virus , These protocols are what killed people mostly and ultimately they are what is being used to justify universal recommendations for a vaccine.

bobobob420 4y ago

Im not a skeptic but has to do with the mandate. Has to do with distrust in government, corporations, etc. not fully honest conversations about vaccine etc ..

CodeWriter23 4y ago

No I don’t need to balance anything based on your criteria. I and I alone decide what goes into my body. Anyone who is scared to walk outside and face hundreds of thousands of pathogens on a daily basis should remain at home. If you want a vaccine, go ahead and get one.

pg314 4y ago
Thankfully your attitude wasn't prevalent in previous generations or polio and smallpox would still be rampant.
- CodeWriter23 4y ago
  Three things a) we have VAPP now b) polio is not eradicated, check the Global Polio Eradication Initiative website on those. c) in a case where diagnosis was actually improved in the early years of the polio vaccine they discovered they had been dealing with two things with the same symptoms a all along: paralytic polio and Guillean-Barre syndrome. Determining the respective rates of both is an exercise left to the reader.

LarryMullins 4y ago

> For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? Reasonable is subjective. I got the covid vaccine and had no concern for side effects. But I, like most people, don't bother getting the flu shot every year and I think that's perfectly reasonable despite me having no qualms about side effects. I simply don't care about the flu. Not getting the flu shot is one less reoccurring chore in my life that I don't have to bother with.

mint2 4y ago
Seat belts are a daily chore too?

gfodor 4y ago

Depends on who and when. The idea of vaccinating my young kids in late 2022 is an absurd proposition to me personally - and if the state mandated it, we would leave. This will change once we understand what is happening with these fatalities and correct it.

adamiscool8 4y ago

According to my governments stats, the COVID-19 hospitalization rate for my age + health cohort, when modestly adjusted for their known undercount of cases, is less than 1 in 3000. Also by their stats, more than 1 in 2000 4-dose mRNA vaccine series have resulted in a serious adverse event reported by a health professional. Then, factoring in the additional risk of acquiescing bodily autonomy to an opaque bureaucracy — considering what herding behaviors have been blatantly manufactured over the last few years, and the conflicting interests involved. I think declining is a very reasonable choice.

Izkata 4y ago
Don't forget natural/recovered immunity, which people seem to finally be considering again. For a lot of people any vaccination was unnecessary risk for no reward.
librish 4y ago
What constitutes a 'serious adverse event' in this data? Do you mind linking the source? Having a 1 in 3000 chance of getting so sick you need to be hospitalized seems quite bad.
- manwe150 4y ago
  In case they don't answer, I would guess they are referring to VAERS data, and some random guy who once claimed it underreports everything by 40x. This is not logistically plausible (where would you hide 40x more patients than expected arriving at hospitals?), and I have seen some recent studies suggest that the underreporting factor is actually <1x (meaning it is overreported) when doing statistically random sampling. But that does not stop people from repeating the claim ad nauseam.
  - adamiscool8 4y ago
    In Canada, all reports to our Public Health Infobase must be made by a health care professional. I do suspect underreporting, given social and collegial pressure on practitioners to not undermine vaccination efforts, but I accept the given stats linked above at face value for the purposes of my model.

pexabit 4y ago

Daishiman 4y ago
You are so astoundingly wrong that I'm just glad people like you get coerced into getting vaccinated so society doesn't have to live your terrible risk assessments.
- pexabit 4y ago
  What is your back of the envelope math here? Clearly, the vaccine does not prevent infection. There is no evidence it reduces the incidence of harmful sequelae following infection. So how does this add up to support mandatory vaccination for young men?
  - Daishiman 4y ago
    There are tons of papers showing the exact opposite of what you said if actually cared to look.
    - pexabit 4y ago
      Going to be a little hard to credibly show the vaccine protects against infection when everyone is getting infected. Knowing whether someone is vaccinated against COVID is not going to help you predict whether they have been or will be infected. Knowing whether someone had the smallpox vaccine is going to help you predict whether they had been or would become infected. See the difference?

daneel_w 4y ago

Every person I've asked (here in Sweden) who opted out of COVID-19 vaccination made their decision based on one year of case data covering the two first waves, which to them concluded that statistically they were at no risk based on their age and health status. Despite taking e.g. tetanus boosters, TBC vaccine etc., they are still being referred to as "antivaxxers".

librish 4y ago
At no risk for what?
- mint2 4y ago
  Since I didn’t know Sweden was a nation entirely of stats experts, perhaps the poster meant no risk of objective, statistically sound analysis?
  - daneel_w 4y ago
    I don't know what stupid assumptions you're making, so I'll fill you in: The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has been producing thorough public statistics over the situation in Sweden ever since the COVID outbreak began. The statistics are accumulated on a weekly basis and cover the number of confirmed infections, number of mild and severe hospitalizations, and the number of deaths. All of it is broken down in age groups as well as grouped according to prior underlying health concerns of the patients. The statistics accumulated up to the same week the general availability vaccinations began - covering two waves and approx. 14 months of COVID - revealed that for their age group (age 35-45) and with no known underlying health problems, there had been a total of 11 deaths. It's fully understandable that they don't feel threatened by this virus.
    - mint2 4y ago
      > number of mild and severe hospitalizations And what about those?

addingadimensio 4y ago

Everyone got the vaccine and everyone still got covid. you have to get the vaccine and then covid and then more vaccine and then more Covid and you’re saying it’s clear to you what the benefit risk is in this jumble of vaccinations and Covid vaccines really you know what it is you’re sure you read the paper of the research it’s out there for everyone to just look at?

bakoo 4y ago

> Aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? There is no doubt that we'd have a lot more deaths without the vaccines. I suspect that is true for at least some of the lockdowns too. In my experience, people aren't very good at assessing risks. Actively doing something that comes with a certain risk is often perceived as being more dangerous than passively hoping to avoid what is objectively known to be the greater risk. If those risks are then contested or associated with a high degree of uncertainty, making an active choice often becomes a question of deferring the decision to someone you really trust. If you don't trust anyone, you're not likely to do anything. An anecdote - I know a few people who didn't get the vaccine, or got it a lot later than everyone else, and more often than not they have had bad health care experiences in the past. When you've been on the receiving end of one or more mistakes of that kind, it isn't difficult to understand how waiting to see what happens seems like the smarter choice.

ren_engineer 4y ago

>For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? a huge chunk of the population already got covid during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, so that's not really a factor at this point. The risk of getting covid for them is already baked into the calculation because they got it when there was no other option. They can now decide whether the additional risk of the vaccine is worth it you can't even make the case for mandates based on "stopping the spread" anymore because the vaccines failed at that as well, so it's no longer a public health issue and becomes a personal health decision. Or at least it should be

seydor 4y ago
> during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, That's not true anymore. Recent variants dont induce a lot of immunity that s why reinfections are common. In fact the opposite is true in some cases https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1841 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1841 That said, the vaccines don't prevent infection either
acdha 4y ago
> a huge chunk of the population already got covid during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, so that's not really a factor at this point. The new variants are effective at evading immunity from earlier variants so, no, that's not moot. Even without evasion you'd still need to consider how quickly immunity wanes, too. The vaccines are holding up well for avoiding hospitalization but you're still looking at multiple per year given how much COVID has been mutating. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-covid-wave https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-covid-wave

seydor 4y ago

I took 3 doses of vaccine but it is no longer effective at preventing infections. Studies that keep coming out show that Covid can have a lot of damaging consequences every time you get infected and they accumulate (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3). I have a job and lifestyle that allows me to limit crowded spaces by a lot during wintertime. I will try to avoid getting covid ever again as much as possible, and the vaccine doesn't help much in that. I think the danger from vaccine is very small, but , as in everything, i want to wait a few years before i can trust it. But to those that plan to get immunized by simply getting Covid again I 'd say "good luck" because they are going to need it

josephcsible 4y ago

> multiplied by the risk of getting covid Wouldn't you actually multiply by (the risk of getting covid without the vaccine, minus the risk of getting covid with the vaccine)?

puffoflogic 4y ago

> For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid? That would not be a correct comparison, because the vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid. The risks to balance are: A) The risk of myocarditis and other fatal and non-fatal side-effects from the vaccine, TIMES how many times you get the vaccine, PLUS the cumulative risks of COVID infections over time (which you can get despite being "vaccinated"). B) Just the risks of COVID infections over time. A is strictly more dangerous than B no matter what the risks of COVID are. Every comment saying, "oh but COVID can cause X risk of death and Y risk of myocarditis and blah blah blah" is completely irrelevant, because all of these risks accrue just as much to the vaccinated. Even if the vaccine is, say, 15% effective, which is very generous given the evidence, then that means that if the risks of the vaccine are 15% as much as the risks of COVID, then (A) is still more dangerous. The risks of the vaccine are more than 15% the risks of COVID, as the evidence is piling up. Then there's the little fact that the vaccinated are slightly more likely to be reinfected with COVID than the unvaccinated. But the studies on this are still being suppressed, so you can do the math without it and still come up with vaccination being more dangerous for much of the population.

stainablesteel 4y ago

yeah that's reasonable, and a perfect way to do it is to go by age groups covid is hurting/killing people who are weak, elderly, and immunocompromised. So covid is the bigger worry here, they should get vaccinated young kids mostly don't even notice they have covid, and young people in general, ~<30 y/o, don't have any issues from covid. So the vaccine is a bigger risk, and the natural immunity they gain from getting the disease is more advantageous than the vaccine ever would be for their demographic

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> A question for vaccine skeptics: I don't think it's the correct question to ask. I've got two Pfizer shots but I know many vaccine skeptics who refused to take the shots and they aren't skeptics because of the risk/reward ratio of the vaccine vs covid. They're skeptics because the politicians and the media have repeated a great many different lies during this entire fiasco. For a start if people were allowed to discuss the lab leak hypothesis without being called moon-landing deniers then maybe there'd have been way less skeptics. It's the attitude of the politicians and the mainstream media that created the skeptics. To me what the mainstream media were publishing about the Covid-19 during the outbreak and the first lockdown was approximately as correct as what they were publishing about SBF/FTX before his ponzi was exposed: a narrative they were fed.

sbaiddn 4y ago

Honest question: why does this matter to you? The vaccine doesn't stop transmission, that's widely acknowledged now, and can't establish herd immunity (unless you plan to vaccinate deer). It doesn't affect you at all so why waste time thinking about others' cost-benefit analysis? We all have our reasons. They're all unique and inevitably personal. For my part, standing my ground and resisting the pressure to get jabbed is one of my proudest achievements.

dennis_jeeves1 4y ago

>but aren't the side-effects of covid well established, on average more severe, and much more common? No they are not well COVID in my view. To me the complications that are supposedly attributed to covid are those of respiratory illnesses that have existed long before COVID came on the scene. In fact I have my doubts whether the whole COVID thing is a brand new disease. As someone pointed out there are bigger issues: like trust in pharmaceutical companies and current science medical science. In my current view medical science is very primitive, while putting up a front of sophistication and accuracy, while being very crude. And just so that you know that I'm not a perpetual skeptic, I will go along with Einstein's quotes: “One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

adamrezich 4y ago

control group here: I'm doing fine, and have been doing fine all along, just like every single other person I know who is also in the control group. I'm profoundly uninterested in publicly debating my internal decision-making process. though I am interested in hearing from anyone else in the control group to see how they're doing.