3 ms·

It’s true that Trump may well have rolled back the legislation he put in place, who knows? Efficacy figures are bound to change once you go from a ‘small’ stud

It’s true that Trump may well have rolled back the legislation he put in place, who knows? Efficacy figures are bound to change once you go from a ‘small’ study (in this case hundreds of thousands) to a wider population. The original efficacy claims would have been truly astounding, and they ended up being only very good. 80% efficacy (which it ended up as) should be seen as a medical triumph, and certainly worthwhile in the context of a global pandemic.

kcplate 1y ago
> original efficacy claims would have been truly astounding That’s the problem, the bar was set too high. Things were said like “get the vaccine and you won’t get Covid”, “you won’t be able to spread it if you do get it”, and “you will have a milder case if you do get it”. In short order people realized all of those things were exaggerated and not true. Erodes trust. It was a huge miscalculation and damage was done.
- teamonkey 1y ago
  > Things were said like “get the vaccine and you won’t get Covid” Was this actually said, or did they say something like “much less likely to get Covid symptoms”? Because the science never claimed 100% efficacy, at best they said 94%, which is quite a clear indication that some people would still get symptoms. The efficacy rates and R rates were all over the news at the time. > “you won’t be able to spread it if you do get it” Again an absolute that was never claimed by science. If you have milder symptoms it reduces the chance of spreading and reduces the viral load when it does. Even a small reduction in symptoms in the population will greatly help reduce the rate of the virus spreading. > “you will have a milder case if you do get it”. This part at least is correct. There was a lot of confusion and bad science communication at the time, but the vaccines worked the same as vaccines always have. R rates and efficacy rates were talked about at length on mainstream and social media (what else did they have to talk about). The problem is that people heard only what they wanted to hear.
  - kcplate 1y ago
    Tons of compilation videos on YT of Biden, other politicos, and much of the leftward leaning media making those very claims in 2021. I’ve seen them, don’t need to again, and don’t want my algorithm results to be filled with that crap by doing a search on your behalf. People tend to try and excuse it by saying “well, they weren’t the scientists” but the reality is they were the public face of the covid vaccination efforts and their exaggerations and insistence on mandates had a net negative effect on people’s perceptions of the covid vaccine efficacy which has bled into a more general skepticism of public health and other vaccines. Remember what President Obama purportedly said: “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up”. Applies here.
    - teamonkey 11mo ago
      Politicians always use simple, punchy messaging to get the point across. They do trade accuracy for simplicity, that’s a given. I personally think “get vaccinated so you don’t get sick and don’t spread it to others” is an acceptable simplification of “get vaccinated so you have less chance of getting severely sick and reduce the risk of spreading it to others”, which is the truth (though I believe the language used was most often closer to the latter than the former). In any case, they most certainly communicated more detail than you are suggesting. In fact there was a lot of detail. It’s very hard to buy the notion that Biden was actively misleading that vaccines were going to be 100% effective when in White House briefings the president would hand over to medical staff, who then talked in depth about efficacy rates of less than 100%.
      - kcplate 11mo ago
        > …an acceptable simplification… There is nothing acceptable about a message that ends up eroding trust in science and health authorities. Good intentions with poor outcomes hurt more than they help. We shouldn’t excuse it.
        teamonkey 11mo ago
        As I said clearly, a) that was a personal opinion, b) I don’t believe the message was actually presented in such absolute terms. There may have been poor science communication, which is always a problem, but that is not unusual. There was and continues to be a huge amount of disinformation and anti-science fear spread around, but the correct information was put out there and if you weren’t getting the right information you need to change your sources.

kcplate 1y ago

> original efficacy claims would have been truly astounding That’s the problem, the bar was set too high. Things were said like “get the vaccine and you won’t get Covid”, “you won’t be able to spread it if you do get it”, and “you will have a milder case if you do get it”. In short order people realized all of those things were exaggerated and not true. Erodes trust. It was a huge miscalculation and damage was done.

teamonkey 1y ago
> Things were said like “get the vaccine and you won’t get Covid” Was this actually said, or did they say something like “much less likely to get Covid symptoms”? Because the science never claimed 100% efficacy, at best they said 94%, which is quite a clear indication that some people would still get symptoms. The efficacy rates and R rates were all over the news at the time. > “you won’t be able to spread it if you do get it” Again an absolute that was never claimed by science. If you have milder symptoms it reduces the chance of spreading and reduces the viral load when it does. Even a small reduction in symptoms in the population will greatly help reduce the rate of the virus spreading. > “you will have a milder case if you do get it”. This part at least is correct. There was a lot of confusion and bad science communication at the time, but the vaccines worked the same as vaccines always have. R rates and efficacy rates were talked about at length on mainstream and social media (what else did they have to talk about). The problem is that people heard only what they wanted to hear.
- kcplate 1y ago
  Tons of compilation videos on YT of Biden, other politicos, and much of the leftward leaning media making those very claims in 2021. I’ve seen them, don’t need to again, and don’t want my algorithm results to be filled with that crap by doing a search on your behalf. People tend to try and excuse it by saying “well, they weren’t the scientists” but the reality is they were the public face of the covid vaccination efforts and their exaggerations and insistence on mandates had a net negative effect on people’s perceptions of the covid vaccine efficacy which has bled into a more general skepticism of public health and other vaccines. Remember what President Obama purportedly said: “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up”. Applies here.
  - teamonkey 11mo ago
    Politicians always use simple, punchy messaging to get the point across. They do trade accuracy for simplicity, that’s a given. I personally think “get vaccinated so you don’t get sick and don’t spread it to others” is an acceptable simplification of “get vaccinated so you have less chance of getting severely sick and reduce the risk of spreading it to others”, which is the truth (though I believe the language used was most often closer to the latter than the former). In any case, they most certainly communicated more detail than you are suggesting. In fact there was a lot of detail. It’s very hard to buy the notion that Biden was actively misleading that vaccines were going to be 100% effective when in White House briefings the president would hand over to medical staff, who then talked in depth about efficacy rates of less than 100%.
    - kcplate 11mo ago
      > …an acceptable simplification… There is nothing acceptable about a message that ends up eroding trust in science and health authorities. Good intentions with poor outcomes hurt more than they help. We shouldn’t excuse it.
      - teamonkey 11mo ago
        As I said clearly, a) that was a personal opinion, b) I don’t believe the message was actually presented in such absolute terms. There may have been poor science communication, which is always a problem, but that is not unusual. There was and continues to be a huge amount of disinformation and anti-science fear spread around, but the correct information was put out there and if you weren’t getting the right information you need to change your sources.