3 ms·

I was in a private discussion group during the pandemic that "did their own research" First off, this was genuinely valuable during the first few months. Giga

I was in a private discussion group during the pandemic that "did their own research" First off, this was genuinely valuable during the first few months. Gigantic medical institutions were moving at a glacial pace and were making proclamations literally months behind the state of the research. In order to conserve masks, propaganda was put out that masks were only effective if you were a medical professional, and the most common way I saw this rationalised was that the general public was simply too stupid to wear a mask in a sanitary way. So I proceeded to wear a mask in a sanitary way. Then after a few months mask stocks started to pile up so propagandists THEN pronounced that more science was conducted and masks were actually effective for everybody! That positive outcome aside, what other people saw was that the younger people got, the lower the risks of COVID, and the higher the risks of getting vaccinated. In fact, it seemed from the numbers (This is for the earlier strains of COVID), that for certain populations (young people who lived like hermits, in other words, hacker news readers) it could be on a selfish individual basis, be irrational to get the COVID vaccine. The risk from myocarditis could actually outweigh the risk of COVID itself. It was however, always in the collective interest for as many people to get vaccinated as possible, to reduce the transmission of COVID, and reduce the consequent strain on medical resources and the direct/indirect deaths this caused. Public health institutions did not get into this nuance, because it wasn't in the collective interest, so they just told everybody the vaccine was good for you. I proceeded to get vaccinated, and the main person I held discussions with did not, after both drawing the exact same scientific conclusion. Not every anti-vaccer was stupid, some of them were just massive civil libertarians. What I saw from people who DIDN'T do their own research is that they were UNIFORMLY misinformed because they tended to either believe institutions who would lie to them whenever it served their purposes (2 weeks to flatten the curve!), or believed whatever podcaster told them about Ivermectin.

linuxftw 3y ago
We know now that the CDC and the manufacturers (and the media) lied about efficacy regarding preventing transmission/infection. In fact, the trials didn't even attempt to measure transmission or infection, and were not ever authorized for such. The only thing they were authorized for was reducing the severity. Do not perpetuate the myth that the vaccines slowed the spread.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  No, I think I will stand by my position that the vaccines did in fact slow the spread, especially early on. I think there is LOTS of evidence about the vaccines effects on transmission which points to them being effective. Also think back to before we had good evidence on transmissibility/infection. Myocarditis hit the young, who were the last to be vaccinated, and consequently among the last to be researched. So the evidence of the vaccinations effects on transmissibility/infection led the evidence about myocarditis. Before either of those bits of evidence came out, the vaccines were nevertheless VERY effective at reducing hospitalisations from COVID-19 caused by early strains in those initial trials. I've also only really heard of the Pfizer trial's being severely criticised after the fact. So there was good cause to get vaccinated the entire time, although the value of vaccination kept dropping as new strains kept cropping up which were seemingly less impaired by vaccination, and after omicron I saw a huge amount of people start to skip vaccination.
  - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
    > I think there is LOTS of evidence about the vaccines effects on transmission which points to them being effective. Can you point to some canonical sources on this? Preferably things that were published in the last year or so. My understanding is that effects on infection and transmission were overstated and very short lived anyway. Didn't everybody get covid eventually, multiple times even?
    - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
      Everyone getting covid and slowing transmission aren't incompatible. In the no lockdown, no vaccine world, everyone gets covid in ~100 days. With vaccines that period is a lot longer (roughly a year?) even though omicron has roughly twice as high a transmission rate. The simplest proof that vaccines have an effect on transmission is the number of infected people by vaccine status. There have been dozens of studies of this (see https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-effectiveness https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-effectiven...) but this really is one where you can just eyeball the effects https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-breakthrough-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-brea....

linuxftw 3y ago

We know now that the CDC and the manufacturers (and the media) lied about efficacy regarding preventing transmission/infection. In fact, the trials didn't even attempt to measure transmission or infection, and were not ever authorized for such. The only thing they were authorized for was reducing the severity. Do not perpetuate the myth that the vaccines slowed the spread.

faeriechangling 3y ago
No, I think I will stand by my position that the vaccines did in fact slow the spread, especially early on. I think there is LOTS of evidence about the vaccines effects on transmission which points to them being effective. Also think back to before we had good evidence on transmissibility/infection. Myocarditis hit the young, who were the last to be vaccinated, and consequently among the last to be researched. So the evidence of the vaccinations effects on transmissibility/infection led the evidence about myocarditis. Before either of those bits of evidence came out, the vaccines were nevertheless VERY effective at reducing hospitalisations from COVID-19 caused by early strains in those initial trials. I've also only really heard of the Pfizer trial's being severely criticised after the fact. So there was good cause to get vaccinated the entire time, although the value of vaccination kept dropping as new strains kept cropping up which were seemingly less impaired by vaccination, and after omicron I saw a huge amount of people start to skip vaccination.
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago
  > I think there is LOTS of evidence about the vaccines effects on transmission which points to them being effective. Can you point to some canonical sources on this? Preferably things that were published in the last year or so. My understanding is that effects on infection and transmission were overstated and very short lived anyway. Didn't everybody get covid eventually, multiple times even?
  - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
    Everyone getting covid and slowing transmission aren't incompatible. In the no lockdown, no vaccine world, everyone gets covid in ~100 days. With vaccines that period is a lot longer (roughly a year?) even though omicron has roughly twice as high a transmission rate. The simplest proof that vaccines have an effect on transmission is the number of infected people by vaccine status. There have been dozens of studies of this (see https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-effectiveness https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-effectiven...) but this really is one where you can just eyeball the effects https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-breakthrough-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-brea....