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> The problem is the massive leaps of logic being made by people who have (quite wrongly, based on available evidence) become convinced that the vaccines are a

> The problem is the massive leaps of logic being made by people who have (quite wrongly, based on available evidence) become convinced that the vaccines are a greater threat to healthy people than the virus is. In some cases, it may well be true that the vaccine is a greater risk than the virus. For example, in Australia, the official recommendation is that healthy people under 30 not receive a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine, since Australian health officials believe the risk from vaccine side effects (such as myocarditis) in that age group outweighs the risk of COVID-19 itself. [0] Furthermore, for healthy people in the 30-49 age group, the official Australian position on fourth doses is "permitted but not recommended", since it is unclear if the risk of COVID-19 is greater than that of the vaccine. This is different from the recommendations made by a number of other countries (US, UK, Canada, Singapore), but it appears Australian health authorities weigh the risk of vaccination side effects versus the risk of COVID-19 differently than they do. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-you-won-t-get-another-covid-shot-this-year-despite-rising-cases-20221110-p5bx78.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-you-won-t-get-another-co...

wsc981 4y ago
Denmark doesn’t recommend COVID vaccines anymore to anyone under 50 who is not at risk or work in health sector [0]. > People aged under 50 are generally not at particularly higher risk of becoming severely ill from covid-19. In addition, younger people aged under 50 are well protected against becoming severely ill from covid-19, as a very large number of them have already been vaccinated and have previously been infected with covid-19, and there is consequently good immunity among this part of the population. ——— [0]: https://sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Vaccination-against-covid-19 https://sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Vaccination-against-cov...
- birken 4y ago
  While I think it is certainly fair to talk about the policies of other countries, I don't think just because another country has a different policy necessarily dictates that policy is better or worse. Additionally, I think it's very easy to see something like "Denmark doesn't recommend the vaccines to anybody under 50" and conflate that it means that Denmark doesn't think vaccines were ever beneficial to people under the age of 50 (which is the leap in logic you often see on anti-vax sites). But that isn't the case. What was good health policy in 2021 is different from good health policy now, because we have way more information about the virus, better and more effective drug to treat it, new variants, etc. Two things can be true at the same time: The vaccines are (on net) incredibly beneficial to people and the population as a whole, and yet at the present time there are certain specific populations of people whose optimal number of doses might be fewer than others.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > While I think it is certainly fair to talk about the policies of other countries, I don't think just because another country has a different policy necessarily dictates that policy is better or worse. Sure. But if a person is aware that other countries have different policies, that gives them a legitimate reason to question whether the policy of their own country is correct. If a person looks into the matter, and decides not to follow the recommendations of their own government, because they think some other country's government is more likely to have got it right, such a person isn't necessarily being irrational/irresponsible/etc, nor would it necessarily be irrational/irresponsible/etc for them to share their conclusion with others. > and conflate that it means that Denmark doesn't think vaccines were ever beneficial to people under the age of 50 (which is the leap in logic you often see on anti-vax sites) Yes, many people do seem to conflate these two claims: (1) "for healthy children and young people, the safety risk of additional doses of the vaccine currently outweighs the risk of COVID-19" (2) "for healthy children and young people, the safety risk of any dose of the vaccine has always outweighed the risk of COVID-19" While claim (1) is disputed, some highly respected medical experts agree with it; the same cannot be said for claim (2). However, I think this conflation goes in both directions – some people who want to defend (2) do so by conflating it with (1); but conversely, some people attack (1) by conflating it with (2). Some people can't distinguish reasonable scepticism about vaccinations from unreasonable scepticism.
    - birken 4y ago
      Yeah, I agree completely. It also is difficult position for health agencies to be in, because they want to make clear guidelines to prevent confusion, but there are gray areas. For example, it's completely possible that: (a) The benefits outweigh the risks of a 4th shot for any age group or (b) The risks outweigh the benefits of a 4th shot for some or all age groups [not because the risk are high, but the benefits so low] AFAIK, there aren't any super high quality studies anywhere in the world that have robust data on the 4th shot in particular for all age groups. So one health agency might guess one way, another health agency might guess another way. Reasonable people can disagree. The CDC got a little bit ahead of the science when they were initially recommending the 3rd shot, but in the long run it was proven to be a good gamble that no doubt saved thousands of lives. But now maybe that same logic is a mistake for the 4th shot. But regardless of the CDC's recommendations, most people seem to have figured out the cost/benefit for themselves: The vast majority of people in the US have 2 shots, a little under half have the booster, and very few have the 4th shot. Most people probably have made the right choices for themselves given the various risks and benefits for them personally.
blub 4y ago
I’ve been watching the vaccine discussions on HN these years and one can see that too many people are stuck fighting vaccination windmills from days gone by, while downplaying vaccine risks which by now are established and continue to be investigated as this publication shows. Meanwhile many EU countries have understood that heart problems are a real risk and have adjusted recommendations accordingly. They’ve also stopped obsessing about vaccinating people. The vaccination crusade’s dead folks, please stand by for the next pandemic.
- failuser 4y ago
  So you argue that you should increase the risk of death or disability by COVID by not vaccinating. Got it.
  - throw4659261 4y ago
- meindnoch 4y ago
  It’s the paradox of intelligence: smart people are more prone to fight tooth and nail, and do all kinds of mental gymnastics, rather than to admit that they too have been misled. People of average or below average intelligence tend to accept it much more easily. I don’t know if there’s already a name for this phenomenon…
  - marvin 4y ago
    Would love to see the incidence of this by IQ. My intuition says it spikes in slightly smarter-than-average folks.
    - chromatin 4y ago
      This is the so-called "midwit" meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit
  - 4y ago
simplotek 4y ago
> For example, in Australia, the official recommendation is that healthy people under 30 not receive a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine (...) It should be stressed that this guidance explicitly refers to a fourth dose of a vaccine. I feel it's disingenuous to use this example to try to refute the OP when the problem lies in people taking massive leaps of logic such as going from "it's ok to take 3 doses of a vaccine but the benefits of a fourth might not justify it" to "don't get vaccinated ever because you will die".
- skissane 4y ago
  > "it's ok to take 3 doses of a vaccine but the benefits of a fourth might not justify it" That's not what the Australian health authorities are saying. They aren't just saying that "the benefits of a fourth might not justify it", they are saying "(for healthy young people) the health risks of the fourth dose likely outweigh the health benefits"–your rephrasing ignores that safety risk aspect. In my mind, there are three different positions here: (1) "Vaccines are perfectly safe, and anyone who even mentions death or serious injury caused by vaccination is just being an alarmist" (2) "Everyone who took the deadly COVID vax is about to drop dead! Just watch!" (3) "Vaccines have real safety risks, some people have died from vaccination, and it is certain that more people will die from them in the future. However, sometimes, the risk of death or disability from the disease the vaccine is intended to prevent, is going to be significantly higher than the risk of death or disability from the vaccine. Whether or not that is true in any particular case is going to vary depending on the particular disease, its current prevalence, availability of treatments for it, etc; whether the disease or the vaccine poses the greater health risk will vary across time, place, disease and vaccine; our estimates of those respective risks are always going to be imperfect, evolving, and open to informed disagreement; generally we should trust the public health authorities to make that judgement for us, but they are not infallible, and it can be legitimate to doubt or question their judgement in any particular case" I see myself as defending (3), whereas what some other people in this conversation are saying seems to me to be closer to (1), and also encouraging the fallacious conflation of (3) with (2).
  - OrvalWintermute 4y ago

wsc981 4y ago

Denmark doesn’t recommend COVID vaccines anymore to anyone under 50 who is not at risk or work in health sector [0]. > People aged under 50 are generally not at particularly higher risk of becoming severely ill from covid-19. In addition, younger people aged under 50 are well protected against becoming severely ill from covid-19, as a very large number of them have already been vaccinated and have previously been infected with covid-19, and there is consequently good immunity among this part of the population. ——— [0]: https://sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Vaccination-against-covid-19 https://sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Vaccination-against-cov...

birken 4y ago
While I think it is certainly fair to talk about the policies of other countries, I don't think just because another country has a different policy necessarily dictates that policy is better or worse. Additionally, I think it's very easy to see something like "Denmark doesn't recommend the vaccines to anybody under 50" and conflate that it means that Denmark doesn't think vaccines were ever beneficial to people under the age of 50 (which is the leap in logic you often see on anti-vax sites). But that isn't the case. What was good health policy in 2021 is different from good health policy now, because we have way more information about the virus, better and more effective drug to treat it, new variants, etc. Two things can be true at the same time: The vaccines are (on net) incredibly beneficial to people and the population as a whole, and yet at the present time there are certain specific populations of people whose optimal number of doses might be fewer than others.
- skissane 4y ago
  > While I think it is certainly fair to talk about the policies of other countries, I don't think just because another country has a different policy necessarily dictates that policy is better or worse. Sure. But if a person is aware that other countries have different policies, that gives them a legitimate reason to question whether the policy of their own country is correct. If a person looks into the matter, and decides not to follow the recommendations of their own government, because they think some other country's government is more likely to have got it right, such a person isn't necessarily being irrational/irresponsible/etc, nor would it necessarily be irrational/irresponsible/etc for them to share their conclusion with others. > and conflate that it means that Denmark doesn't think vaccines were ever beneficial to people under the age of 50 (which is the leap in logic you often see on anti-vax sites) Yes, many people do seem to conflate these two claims: (1) "for healthy children and young people, the safety risk of additional doses of the vaccine currently outweighs the risk of COVID-19" (2) "for healthy children and young people, the safety risk of any dose of the vaccine has always outweighed the risk of COVID-19" While claim (1) is disputed, some highly respected medical experts agree with it; the same cannot be said for claim (2). However, I think this conflation goes in both directions – some people who want to defend (2) do so by conflating it with (1); but conversely, some people attack (1) by conflating it with (2). Some people can't distinguish reasonable scepticism about vaccinations from unreasonable scepticism.
  - birken 4y ago
    Yeah, I agree completely. It also is difficult position for health agencies to be in, because they want to make clear guidelines to prevent confusion, but there are gray areas. For example, it's completely possible that: (a) The benefits outweigh the risks of a 4th shot for any age group or (b) The risks outweigh the benefits of a 4th shot for some or all age groups [not because the risk are high, but the benefits so low] AFAIK, there aren't any super high quality studies anywhere in the world that have robust data on the 4th shot in particular for all age groups. So one health agency might guess one way, another health agency might guess another way. Reasonable people can disagree. The CDC got a little bit ahead of the science when they were initially recommending the 3rd shot, but in the long run it was proven to be a good gamble that no doubt saved thousands of lives. But now maybe that same logic is a mistake for the 4th shot. But regardless of the CDC's recommendations, most people seem to have figured out the cost/benefit for themselves: The vast majority of people in the US have 2 shots, a little under half have the booster, and very few have the 4th shot. Most people probably have made the right choices for themselves given the various risks and benefits for them personally.

blub 4y ago

I’ve been watching the vaccine discussions on HN these years and one can see that too many people are stuck fighting vaccination windmills from days gone by, while downplaying vaccine risks which by now are established and continue to be investigated as this publication shows. Meanwhile many EU countries have understood that heart problems are a real risk and have adjusted recommendations accordingly. They’ve also stopped obsessing about vaccinating people. The vaccination crusade’s dead folks, please stand by for the next pandemic.

failuser 4y ago
So you argue that you should increase the risk of death or disability by COVID by not vaccinating. Got it.
- throw4659261 4y ago
meindnoch 4y ago
It’s the paradox of intelligence: smart people are more prone to fight tooth and nail, and do all kinds of mental gymnastics, rather than to admit that they too have been misled. People of average or below average intelligence tend to accept it much more easily. I don’t know if there’s already a name for this phenomenon…
- marvin 4y ago
  Would love to see the incidence of this by IQ. My intuition says it spikes in slightly smarter-than-average folks.
  - chromatin 4y ago
    This is the so-called "midwit" meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit
- 4y ago

simplotek 4y ago

> For example, in Australia, the official recommendation is that healthy people under 30 not receive a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine (...) It should be stressed that this guidance explicitly refers to a fourth dose of a vaccine. I feel it's disingenuous to use this example to try to refute the OP when the problem lies in people taking massive leaps of logic such as going from "it's ok to take 3 doses of a vaccine but the benefits of a fourth might not justify it" to "don't get vaccinated ever because you will die".

skissane 4y ago
> "it's ok to take 3 doses of a vaccine but the benefits of a fourth might not justify it" That's not what the Australian health authorities are saying. They aren't just saying that "the benefits of a fourth might not justify it", they are saying "(for healthy young people) the health risks of the fourth dose likely outweigh the health benefits"–your rephrasing ignores that safety risk aspect. In my mind, there are three different positions here: (1) "Vaccines are perfectly safe, and anyone who even mentions death or serious injury caused by vaccination is just being an alarmist" (2) "Everyone who took the deadly COVID vax is about to drop dead! Just watch!" (3) "Vaccines have real safety risks, some people have died from vaccination, and it is certain that more people will die from them in the future. However, sometimes, the risk of death or disability from the disease the vaccine is intended to prevent, is going to be significantly higher than the risk of death or disability from the vaccine. Whether or not that is true in any particular case is going to vary depending on the particular disease, its current prevalence, availability of treatments for it, etc; whether the disease or the vaccine poses the greater health risk will vary across time, place, disease and vaccine; our estimates of those respective risks are always going to be imperfect, evolving, and open to informed disagreement; generally we should trust the public health authorities to make that judgement for us, but they are not infallible, and it can be legitimate to doubt or question their judgement in any particular case" I see myself as defending (3), whereas what some other people in this conversation are saying seems to me to be closer to (1), and also encouraging the fallacious conflation of (3) with (2).
- OrvalWintermute 4y ago