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Except that your children are still vectors for getting others sick. Vaccines are there not just for you but your community.

ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
Vaccines that have a large impact on transmission and infection are there not just for you but for your community. The covid shots were good against hospitalization and death in older folks, but they were not great at preventing infection or transmission (despite what you may have gleaned from the speakers blaring ads in every public setting for all that time). You can fall back to the "flooding the hospitals" argument, that works a little better here.
- estearum 2mo ago
  You're misinterpreting data here. You are conflating the fact that the clinical trials didn't measure infection/transmission (which is very hard to do in a clinical trial) with the distinct claim that they didn't reduce transmission in reality. The vaccines were extremely effective at reducing transmission during the first waves of COVID, where such an intervention was most valuable. And due to viral growth dynamics, even small reductions in transmission yield big net outcomes. 50% - 70% reduction in transmission: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 Later waves made the vaccine much less effective at reducing transmission, but still highly effective at reducing hospital utilization which is (despite your snarky aside), extremely valuable. Fatality rates doubled when ERs hit full capacity.
  - dosisking 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - estearum 2mo ago
      Maybe you should hang out with a different "everybody" if they systematically believe untrue things
    - bhaak 2mo ago
      Ah, one of those "everybody knows" argument that is on the level of "everybody knows that Napoleon was short". It's not completely wrong but it ignores important context. The part you are leaving unsaid is that the vaccine reduced transmission even if it didn't prevent it completely. 80% reduction is a significant amount. Wearing masks on top of that was the sensible thing to do.
  - ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
    All I'm saying is if you sum up the time (between vaccine release and today) that a person was strongly protected from covid infection and transmission, it's a relatively small portion of that time. Thats my pushback against gp's argument that you have to give this thing to your young kids to protect me.
    - estearum 2mo ago
      I suspect that you and GP and GGP are talking about different time scales. Vaccinating your children for COVID during peak COVID was the right thing to do both for them and for the adults they interact with. Vaccinating your children for COVID today is much lower ROI for them and anyone around them. Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. I struggle to think of a decision or conversation where the relevant metric is "what % of time from vaccination until today were you protected" and I doubt that's what GP was discussing either.
      - ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
        > Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. Isn't this kinda like saying medicating your children in general is very much the right thing to do? Like it's obviously one of those things that everyone expects you to just agree with directionally, but the actually correct answer is no, there is no in general. All drugs have a context where they make sense. E.g. you're probably not vaccinating your kids for rabies, unless you live in an animal sanctuary or something. MMR, sure. It actually seems pretty questionable to me that it was ever a net benefit to your average young kid to get the covid shots.
        estearum 2mo ago
        No there actually is in general and it's the same exact way in which there's generally good guidance for medicating your children: they're called evidence-backed guidelines. The contexts in which drugs make sense is captured by the clinical guidelines. And sure, it is arguably questionable whether there was ever a net benefit to an average young kid to get a COVID vaccine. However that is a distinct claim from "it never made sense to give kids COVID vaccines." There was certainly a point in time in which a logical interpretation of the information available at the time indicated that kids should get vaccinated. The risks were (correctly) understood to be near-zero and the benefits were (arguably incorrectly) understood to be significant. Someone who, in early 2021, decided against vaccinating their children was making a decision that was not indicated by the best-available information at that time. Someone who bets on Red doesn't get to claim they were "correct" in betting on Red even if Red comes up, and certainly not if Green comes up (arguably neutral outcome).

ifyoubuildit 2mo ago

Vaccines that have a large impact on transmission and infection are there not just for you but for your community. The covid shots were good against hospitalization and death in older folks, but they were not great at preventing infection or transmission (despite what you may have gleaned from the speakers blaring ads in every public setting for all that time). You can fall back to the "flooding the hospitals" argument, that works a little better here.

estearum 2mo ago
You're misinterpreting data here. You are conflating the fact that the clinical trials didn't measure infection/transmission (which is very hard to do in a clinical trial) with the distinct claim that they didn't reduce transmission in reality. The vaccines were extremely effective at reducing transmission during the first waves of COVID, where such an intervention was most valuable. And due to viral growth dynamics, even small reductions in transmission yield big net outcomes. 50% - 70% reduction in transmission: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 Later waves made the vaccine much less effective at reducing transmission, but still highly effective at reducing hospital utilization which is (despite your snarky aside), extremely valuable. Fatality rates doubled when ERs hit full capacity.
- dosisking 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - estearum 2mo ago
    Maybe you should hang out with a different "everybody" if they systematically believe untrue things
  - bhaak 2mo ago
    Ah, one of those "everybody knows" argument that is on the level of "everybody knows that Napoleon was short". It's not completely wrong but it ignores important context. The part you are leaving unsaid is that the vaccine reduced transmission even if it didn't prevent it completely. 80% reduction is a significant amount. Wearing masks on top of that was the sensible thing to do.
- ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
  All I'm saying is if you sum up the time (between vaccine release and today) that a person was strongly protected from covid infection and transmission, it's a relatively small portion of that time. Thats my pushback against gp's argument that you have to give this thing to your young kids to protect me.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    I suspect that you and GP and GGP are talking about different time scales. Vaccinating your children for COVID during peak COVID was the right thing to do both for them and for the adults they interact with. Vaccinating your children for COVID today is much lower ROI for them and anyone around them. Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. I struggle to think of a decision or conversation where the relevant metric is "what % of time from vaccination until today were you protected" and I doubt that's what GP was discussing either.
    - ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
      > Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. Isn't this kinda like saying medicating your children in general is very much the right thing to do? Like it's obviously one of those things that everyone expects you to just agree with directionally, but the actually correct answer is no, there is no in general. All drugs have a context where they make sense. E.g. you're probably not vaccinating your kids for rabies, unless you live in an animal sanctuary or something. MMR, sure. It actually seems pretty questionable to me that it was ever a net benefit to your average young kid to get the covid shots.
      - estearum 2mo ago
        No there actually is in general and it's the same exact way in which there's generally good guidance for medicating your children: they're called evidence-backed guidelines. The contexts in which drugs make sense is captured by the clinical guidelines. And sure, it is arguably questionable whether there was ever a net benefit to an average young kid to get a COVID vaccine. However that is a distinct claim from "it never made sense to give kids COVID vaccines." There was certainly a point in time in which a logical interpretation of the information available at the time indicated that kids should get vaccinated. The risks were (correctly) understood to be near-zero and the benefits were (arguably incorrectly) understood to be significant. Someone who, in early 2021, decided against vaccinating their children was making a decision that was not indicated by the best-available information at that time. Someone who bets on Red doesn't get to claim they were "correct" in betting on Red even if Red comes up, and certainly not if Green comes up (arguably neutral outcome).