4 ms·

Looking at the numbers mentioned and thinking rationally of risk, the deaths from the reaction to AZ despite the scale of the vaccination program are negligible

Looking at the numbers mentioned and thinking rationally of risk, the deaths from the reaction to AZ despite the scale of the vaccination program are negligible compared to deaths from COVID itself, to the extent that this amount of discussion over this is comparatively an overreaction.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
you're confusing population risk with personal risk. Think about it like this. The chances of dying in a vehicle wreck is very small. But those who have died in them probably would have preferred finding an alternative means to get to their destination. If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine for fear they'll become a statistic, that's perfectly valid.
- emporas 4y ago
  Yep, personal risk may be wildy different than a population risk. As someone who lives in a sparsely populated, rural and mountainous area in Greece, the risk of being killed in a car accident still exists but it is a lot different than city accidents. Seatbelts, car mirrors, airbags are all mandated by the government. Mirrors are not so useful, because not many cars are driving on the road at any given time. Most motorcycles do not have even one mirror because they are useless. Animals may cross the road, sharp rocks may have fallen on the street which can cause a vehicle to literally fall of a cliff. Good luck hoping for an airbag to save your life, while you are on a 10-20 meter fall. Safety is still provided by the car gizmos, albeit to a very small negligible amount of the local population. Safety measures mandated from the government to the car manufacturers are more relevant to big cities than here. Dangerity on the other hand, the ability to be in danger, is more preferable when it is cheaper. The car gizmos, take up space, and cost money. Safety is not always better, and when it costs too much money, every normal person should fear safety, and take the side of dangerity instead. A normal non fat person, who exercises once in a while, and is reasonably mindful of their eating habits, should definitely choose the side of dangerity in case of Covid. Safety in that case costs too much money, and it should definitely be avoided.
blub 4y ago
The European Medicines Agency did a risk calculation with various transmission levels and segmented by age: https://www.ema.europa.eu/documents/chmp-annex/annex-vaxzevria-art53-visual-risk-contextualisation_en.pdf https://www.ema.europa.eu/documents/chmp-annex/annex-vaxzevr... As can be seen, getting infected is actually not that bad compared to getting the AZ vaccine. In younger age groups the vaccine became hard to recommend contrary to what many claimed and continue to claim on social media. You also obviously haven’t read case reports for the people that got the blood clots and survived, if you’re only considering deaths as an undesirable outcome. They will have to adjust to significant sequelae for the rest of their lives.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > As can be seen, getting infected is actually not that bad compared to getting the AZ vaccine. The analysis that your link is missing a comparison between the harm of getting hospitalized with covid and the harm of a case of blood clots. Without that severity comparison, while it does show that for all age groups hospitalization is many times more likely than clots it's hard to make a judgment either way. > You also obviously haven’t read case reports for the people that got the blood clots and survived, if you’re only considering deaths as an undesirable outcome. But you also need to count the people who got covid and survived with serious long-term symptoms, no?
  - blub 4y ago
    I think most people would agree that getting hospitalized beats brain surgery. The only comparable Covid outcome is the ICU and that’s very rare for people below 40. It probably makes sense to get a vaccine for younger people, just not the awful AZ. And many countries agree, having switched to mRNA. What they didn’t do yet is admit that they were pushing the AZ crap much harder than was called for and apologize for screwing up vaccine procurement.
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
My observation is that people's personal views on the matter depend not so much on statistics, but personal experience: how bad was their COVID, whether they had taken the vaccine or not when they fell ill, what kinds of symptoms they developed afterwards, whether they know some people who died from COVID or sudden heart condition some time after COVID or taking the vaccine etc.
jefftk 4y ago
Here are some numbers in a similar direction: * Eight deaths out of 13 million doses is 0.6 micromorts from getting the vaccine, about equivalent to driving 150 mi. * For a 35-year-old man in the US, risk of death if you're diagnosed with covid is 0.1% [1] or 1000 micromorts. [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mortality-risk-estimator https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort...
- __turbobrew__ 4y ago
  IF you are diagnosed with covid, which ignores all those who have minor or asymptomatic symptoms and never get diagnosed skewing the stat to those who had worse symptoms.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Adjusting for that would bring us from ~1000 micromorts to ~250: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138781
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- areyousure 4y ago
  And how does the probability of getting diagnosed with Covid change if you get the AstraZeneca COVID‑19 vaccine?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Expected number of future infections goes down a bit, and risk of death conditional on a given number of infections goes down a lot.
- bluejekyll 4y ago
  I was unfamiliar with the term micromort, it’s basically one a million chance of death: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

you're confusing population risk with personal risk. Think about it like this. The chances of dying in a vehicle wreck is very small. But those who have died in them probably would have preferred finding an alternative means to get to their destination. If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine for fear they'll become a statistic, that's perfectly valid.

emporas 4y ago
Yep, personal risk may be wildy different than a population risk. As someone who lives in a sparsely populated, rural and mountainous area in Greece, the risk of being killed in a car accident still exists but it is a lot different than city accidents. Seatbelts, car mirrors, airbags are all mandated by the government. Mirrors are not so useful, because not many cars are driving on the road at any given time. Most motorcycles do not have even one mirror because they are useless. Animals may cross the road, sharp rocks may have fallen on the street which can cause a vehicle to literally fall of a cliff. Good luck hoping for an airbag to save your life, while you are on a 10-20 meter fall. Safety is still provided by the car gizmos, albeit to a very small negligible amount of the local population. Safety measures mandated from the government to the car manufacturers are more relevant to big cities than here. Dangerity on the other hand, the ability to be in danger, is more preferable when it is cheaper. The car gizmos, take up space, and cost money. Safety is not always better, and when it costs too much money, every normal person should fear safety, and take the side of dangerity instead. A normal non fat person, who exercises once in a while, and is reasonably mindful of their eating habits, should definitely choose the side of dangerity in case of Covid. Safety in that case costs too much money, and it should definitely be avoided.

blub 4y ago

The European Medicines Agency did a risk calculation with various transmission levels and segmented by age: https://www.ema.europa.eu/documents/chmp-annex/annex-vaxzevria-art53-visual-risk-contextualisation_en.pdf https://www.ema.europa.eu/documents/chmp-annex/annex-vaxzevr... As can be seen, getting infected is actually not that bad compared to getting the AZ vaccine. In younger age groups the vaccine became hard to recommend contrary to what many claimed and continue to claim on social media. You also obviously haven’t read case reports for the people that got the blood clots and survived, if you’re only considering deaths as an undesirable outcome. They will have to adjust to significant sequelae for the rest of their lives.

jefftk 4y ago
> As can be seen, getting infected is actually not that bad compared to getting the AZ vaccine. The analysis that your link is missing a comparison between the harm of getting hospitalized with covid and the harm of a case of blood clots. Without that severity comparison, while it does show that for all age groups hospitalization is many times more likely than clots it's hard to make a judgment either way. > You also obviously haven’t read case reports for the people that got the blood clots and survived, if you’re only considering deaths as an undesirable outcome. But you also need to count the people who got covid and survived with serious long-term symptoms, no?
- blub 4y ago
  I think most people would agree that getting hospitalized beats brain surgery. The only comparable Covid outcome is the ICU and that’s very rare for people below 40. It probably makes sense to get a vaccine for younger people, just not the awful AZ. And many countries agree, having switched to mRNA. What they didn’t do yet is admit that they were pushing the AZ crap much harder than was called for and apologize for screwing up vaccine procurement.

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

My observation is that people's personal views on the matter depend not so much on statistics, but personal experience: how bad was their COVID, whether they had taken the vaccine or not when they fell ill, what kinds of symptoms they developed afterwards, whether they know some people who died from COVID or sudden heart condition some time after COVID or taking the vaccine etc.

jefftk 4y ago

Here are some numbers in a similar direction: * Eight deaths out of 13 million doses is 0.6 micromorts from getting the vaccine, about equivalent to driving 150 mi. * For a 35-year-old man in the US, risk of death if you're diagnosed with covid is 0.1% [1] or 1000 micromorts. [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mortality-risk-estimator https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/covid-pandemic-mort...

__turbobrew__ 4y ago
IF you are diagnosed with covid, which ignores all those who have minor or asymptomatic symptoms and never get diagnosed skewing the stat to those who had worse symptoms.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Adjusting for that would bring us from ~1000 micromorts to ~250: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138781
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
areyousure 4y ago
And how does the probability of getting diagnosed with Covid change if you get the AstraZeneca COVID‑19 vaccine?
- jefftk 4y ago
  Expected number of future infections goes down a bit, and risk of death conditional on a given number of infections goes down a lot.
bluejekyll 4y ago
I was unfamiliar with the term micromort, it’s basically one a million chance of death: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort