My assumption is that it follows general post guidelines:
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What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic
What would be the catastrophic consequences of this guideline if HN started a TV channel with news that would "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"?
I thought the bit about polls had been there forever. Someone could check that via archive.org - but you have to use the older URL which was probably http://www.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
Manuals make sense to read to learn something. I'm not going to seek out an FAQ unless I have a question. I guess I don't like FAQs in general. They're usually not really FAQs, but more of disorganized manual.
I pulled down a copy of HN earlier in the year for analysis and was shocked to find polls among the data. It was a very small % of the total content, small enough I assumed it was an old feature that got removed.
Wow... if I had made that statement, I would have been immediately down-voted and my comment removed for not "following the rules".
And then I wonder why certain 'mods' or overzealous persons have it in for me...
However, this will likely be taken care of for me, because I'm 1) not an essential healthcare worker, 2) not a senior citizen and 3) live in a large urban area. Those people will get the vaccine first, and in mid-june (or later) based on the fallout of the vaccine if things seem normal I'll get it.
That said, something like ~50% of Americans said they won't get the vaccine (we'll see what really happens when folks' doctors say it's ready and they should get it) so maybe nonessential non-senior citizens might be able to get it faster than expected
Yeah, I would assume the majority of the people answering 3 would probably be required to wait anyway.
I'm 31 but Type 1 diabetic so I'll be interested to see how early I can get it. The main risk factor for COVID seems to be Type 2, but with how much Type 1 can ruin just about every aspect of your health, I wonder if I'll be able to get in line sooner. If I can, I will.
In the best case, supply constraints nicely follow the change in risk/reward this way. Then by the time you are eligible, the risk profile looks right...
Yep, politics aside I'm very pro vaccine. Vaccines have done amazing things for the world and anti-vaxxers especially those with resources to influence hundreds if not thousands of others are horrible people.
However, a vaccine that's been rushed through gives me pause. To be honest, I'm mostly worried about cognitive and cardiovascular side effects. I've distanced thus far and remain covid free even though I've been in NYC the whole time. It'd be stupid to throw all that away because I got side effects from the vaccine.
Unfortunately, I think the pledge of past presidents to be "vaccinated on tv" is poorly thought out, largely because it will basically just sow conspiracies that they "just had saline injections to influence the masses".
I'm pretty sure I got the real thing, but they are still working on the trial unblinding procedure with the regulator.
They want to keep the trial running as long as possible to get longer-term data (understandable) but it is also potentially unethical to not tell someone if they got a placebo if they are at-risk and a known-good vaccine is otherwise available. I'm in the UK where they are already vaccinating thousands of people everyday with the Pfizer one, so I expect them to figure out the unblinding details very shortly.
They typically need to go for much longer for two reasons:
1. You normally don't expose so many people to an untested medicine, so trials tend to be smaller than this. In this case there was no shortage of volunteers, and the larger the trial the faster it can reach a certain level of confidence in a result.
2. Normally, with vaccines, you need to wait a very long time for enough people to contract the disease and measure how effective it actually is. In this case, there are so many people infected in the general population, that reaching the required number of participants infected happened much faster than usual. In fact, when the trial was planned in the spring, it was expected that it wouldn't reach its required 164 infected participants until sometime in late summer 2021. The reason this happened so quick is that the number of infections in the general population exploded, and so the required data was available much earlier.
There is actually a plan to gradually offer all placebo group patients the vaccine. This will be done in small groups at a time, in order to not inform all remaining participants which group they are in. The plan is to have all placebo group participants be offered a vaccine before the end of the trial. This doesn't break the trial, because there is already a good confidence level for the efficacy results, and the side effects investigation can always use additional participants. This also enables in-patient control, where you can compare the placebo condition and the treatment condition within the same patient.
- The rushed nature of the vaccines. “Fastest approved vaccine” is not re-assuring if you don’t understand what trade was made for that accelerated timeline.
- “I’ll just stay isolated until it dies off”
- “I don’t trust western medicine”
- “I don’t trust the FDA or big pharma”
- “I don’t care if I get covid . People at risk can take the vaccine”
Don’t forget how many people don’t even take the flu shot.
> Don’t forget how many people don’t even take the flu shot.
That's a funny comparison from a UK perspective where the flu shot isn't even offered to the general population (only the elderly, vulnerable or those whose work in healthcare or similar). I'd say there is much more reason to take the COVID vaccine than the flu shot.
Are you sure about that? I know you can easily get it in a local chemist for about a tenner, I’m nearly sure you can book it with your GP if you’re willing to wait a bit longer
Most companies offer the flu jab to their employees for free, and otherwise it's like a tenner to save yourself the risk of 2/3 days of feeling horrible.
Can you elaborate on what you mean it took 2 days? is this akin to a programmer creating a simulation for weeks and then taking an hour to ingest the input data into the simulation?
They got the genome (and I imagine other data) from scientists in China, identified what they believed would be a good target for the immune system and designed the mRNA sequence that would trigger immunity to that target.
It’s very similar to your analogy. Basically, they have a ginormous database of how genes express themselves in various cell types, and they can run fancy queries against this database to identify which cells are most likely to be compromised by a virus of COVID’s shape.
From there, the process of developing the vaccine is training the body to fight blobs that function like COVID does.
The first shot introduces some COVID-shaped blobs, and your body develops some antibody factories to fight them, and keeps some around just in case the scary blobs come back.
The second shot introduces some more blobs, and your body reacts by producing even more antibody factories. “Trick me twice, shame on me”, in nature.
The hard work was building the database. Which was only possible because of the genome project and cell project.
To biologists in this field, I suspect this statement reads something like “this is the first Python client for our Node gRPC service, we have no idea if the language interop will work”.
It ignores all of the hard work over literal decades that has gone into the work of developing mRNA-based medicine (gRPC and protobufs), which was developed literally for situations like Covid-19 (polyglot services communicating over network interfaces).
Yes, mRNA is basically magic from a distance. So is all of modern technology. But it’s built on and hardened by iterative experiments, not conjured from thin air.
Edit: before you downvote, these are reasons I’ve read/heard. They do not represent my own views.
1. This is an mRNA vaccine and is the first of it's kind to be widely offered. This appears to be different than the rest of the vaccines out there for other illnesses.
2. There isn't a perceived benefit for many people: the vast majority of people won't get sick or be impacted in any way.
3. It apparently doesn't stop people from getting or becoming transmissions vectors. So, if you get the vaccine and it makes you less sick, then you may take "riskier" actions than if you were to get it and actually have some symptoms. (IOW, why take it?)
4. Some people can't take it due to allergy concerns?
This is just what I've found in my online research.
Regarding point 3 - isn’t it just that they haven’t studied that yet? The trials for the mRNA vaccines did not test for asymptomatic carriers, so they don’t know if it prevents transmission.
Not sure about the testing, but as someone else pointed out to me, if you touch someone with dirty gloves, dirt will rub off.
I am not sure if asymptomatic transmission has been confirmed or not. I kept hearing that if you didn't have symptoms then you couldn't transfer it, but given the uptick in cases, it wouldn't seem like that is the case.
> I am not sure if asymptomatic transmission has been confirmed or not.
It's been confirmed, from early experience e.g. with the Diamond Princess and USS Theodore Roosevelt. It seems to be rare.
But paucisymptomatic transmission -- transmission before symptoms have manifested in people who will eventually be symptomatic -- is much less rare. So just quarantining people with symptoms doesn't work.
> But paucisymptomatic transmission – transmission before symptoms have manifested in people who will eventually be symptomatic – is much less rare.
The definition you give is for presymptomatic not paucisymptomatic (the latter is basically having trivial/mild symptoms that don’t raise complaints), but transmission in both cases is a significant risk, much more so than true asymptomatic transmission.
> 3. It apparently doesn't stop people from getting or becoming transmissions vectors. So, if you get the vaccine and it makes you less sick, then you may take "riskier" actions than if you were to get it and actually have some symptoms. (IOW, why take it?)
From what I've seen this is not established at all. They are careful to say that they don't have conclusive proof that the people who were in their study were not ever contagious - but that doesn't mean that they were contagious either.
They have simply called out that further studies will be needed before we can say whether and to what degree.
Please don't set up strawmen just to knock them down. It's too easy to cast everyone who has some rational scepticism as nutjob's, but that just alienates those who could otherwise be persuaded by civil discourse.
There's a difference between having seen examples of it, and of it being pervasive and a dominant force. All too often, we attack the weakest arguments of our opponents and ignore the more sane opposition.
There's good reason to ignore the nutjobs and focus on the rational opposition, steel-manning our foe so to speak. It makes our thinking more clear and our arguments stronger.
Even bothering to oppose the insane elements by definition does not convince anyone of anything, since no sane person on either side agrees with the insanity. All it does is momentarily make us feel superior, but it's a fleeting and counterproductive endeavour.
I'm sorry but I'm going to mock anyone who suggests that Bill Gates is going to microchip people through the vaccine. These people are choosing to ignore reality, and should be put in the same boat as Flat-Earthers.
On the other hand, people are of course free to have a healthy scepticism about a new-form of vaccine, and I will happily respect that.
Indeed the microchip is not the opposite viewpoint. The opposite viewpoint is "I won't take the vaccine" or "I won't take the vaccine right away". GP is saying the #1 reason for that viewpoint is that people think they'll be microchipped.
People keep forgetting that the vast majority of people under 45 that get in never have any idea that even had it and over 97% of deaths are people over 45.
In reality it's more like over 80. Yes the incidence of severe cases does go up with age, but it's the very elderly who are most at risk. I'm 54, I had it, and it was a couple of days of slight nasal congestion and a very mild sore throat. If it had been any other year I wouldn't have paid it any mind at all and would have probably attributed it to the dry winter air.
My dad is in his 50s and he was in the hospital for a week near death on a ventilator. I know within 2 degrees of separation at least 6 people who have died. All were in their 50s and 60s. How they commit the crime of being older.
People keep forgetting that death is not the only effect this virus has and many of the side effects afterwards are quite bad.
There have been more than a few cases with people losing taste/smell, heart and lung damage that may be permanent, and other nasty effects that we are still learning about, truly heartbreaking stuff when it is young people who were training for or attempting to become high performance athletes their entire lives just to have it stripped away because of this virus.
Who the hell do you think looks after the old and vulnerable? Mostly the under 45s! Therefore the under 45s should really be making sure they don't get it.
1. mRNA technology has been in varying phases of human trials since 2013. The trials conducted by Pfizer and Moderna were absolutely massive compared to normal study sizes. While this will be the first mass-distribution vaccine using the technology, it's not untested. Further, the results so far suggest it's far more effective than the Oxford vaccine.
2. It's really curious to see people saying, on the one hand, that they're uncertain about a vaccine because of some unexpected long-term impacts, and then saying on the other hand that they're unconcerned about unexpected long-term impacts from a brand new and as-yet-poorly-understood disease. There are still a lot of question marks about covid-19 and researchers are still discovering far more "quiet" impacts in apparently healthy individuals, including blood clots and pericarditis.
2a. Overall though I'm in favor of anybody avoiding this vaccine that wishes to. The disease would continue to disproportionately affect the populations of people who believe it's a hoax, or believe it's not a serious health risk, or believe it's a conspiracy, or believe the vaccine is a conspiracy, or believe that vaccines in general are conspiracies -- and we could do with fewer of those people.
3. As two other people have already pointed out, the researchers have only been cautious about not stating something that they don't know to be factual. It's funny: when researchers are cautious, people read too much into it and draw bad conclusions, and that leads to the kinds of research press releases that other people then criticize for making statements unsupported by evidence. Researchers have repeatedly stated in various media that there's no reason for them to expect people to be infectious after taking the vaccine, they merely haven't tested for this specifically.
4. The people they're talking about here are the sort that need to carry an epi-pen with them wherever they go. If you are one of those people, then yes, at this time there's an uncertain amount of risk associated with these vaccines. The situation is still developing and there should be better information available as the vaccines are distributed.
I appreciate your direct but non-confrontational reply. FWIW I'm quite carefully staying behind the line of "death-wishing", in "it is what it is" territory.
Multiple social issues throughout 2020 have together completely exhausted my usual compassion and optimism towards people. 300,000 Americans and 1.6 million people worldwide are dead but many millions more still don't see this as a public health emergency. Moreover, beleaguered medical workers have been harassed everywhere online and fist fights and other assaults have been reported across the country that were started by wearing a mask. And then there's the cyclopsian intersection in the venn diagram of "people who are aggressively anti-mask" and "people who are unconcerned with or even violently opposed to the health and safety of anybody outside their tribe".
From an entirely pragmatic standpoint, the freedom to choose one's own destiny is arguably the most important human right. All of the information necessary to protect yourself and those around you from this disease is now widely available. Most people who wish to minimize their risk of exposure can do so, with the notable exception of the many medical workers who have been, not asked, but demanded, to put themselves at risk in the service of people who believe those same medical workers are part of some vast conspiracy.
So, I'm asking honestly here, to you or whoever else: convince me to care about the plight of terrible people.
Do these vaccines prevent a person from spreading the virus? I've heard a number of times that these will prevent the person who got the vaccine from getting sick, but that it won't prevent them from spreading the disease. If that is the case then I could understand why a young healthy person would not want the vaccine as the risk to them from covid is extremely low.
The vaccine is not field tested, so there is a risk in the unknown. The Canadian government at least is warning that some people may have an allergic reaction and are creating a tracking database to find out who is most at risk to such. Also, people are not perfect, so the entire supply chain poses some risk in delivering a bad batch of vaccine.
In short, you should not be injecting things into your system unless you really need them.
Not enough to know with absolute certainty what will happen when millions of people get it. Especially unforeseen reactions that take several years to appear.
As much as you trust each of the (5?) vaccines, you yourself can not know for certainty.. there is some doubt. You may judge that that uncertainty and risk is minimal and well worth taking the vaccine, another completely rational person may decide that it is not worth the risk.
The point of my post was that there is real and legitimate risk, be it ever so small. Anyone who pretends there is zero risk to the vaccine is misrepresenting the truth and doing a disservice in the effort of persuading rational adults that vaccine delivery is being lead in an honest and forthright way.
Well luckily we _do_ know what happens with a great deal of certainty when you get actually infected with covid, and it turns out it sucks pretty hard.
i find this "better the devil you know" mindset really weird when the "devil you know" is an extremely infectious virus that has killed _three hundred thousand_ americans (not to mention more worldwide), and thousands more by the day.
these hypothetical vaccine side effects that have not come up during any of the trials that have been going on for _months_, across thousands and thousands of participants, would have to be pretty insanely bad in order to outweigh the negatives of millions more people contracting the actual virus.
But you have to acknowledge that there are huge incentives for the drug manufacturers to have a successful test and a healthy scepticism until they have been truly independently verified isn't unwarranted.
Also a pure, as tested, vaccine doesn't magically appear for your inoculation, there is manufacturing, and delivery, and other potential contamination points along the way. It means what goes into your system isn't necessarily what has shown to be safe; not a huge risk, but a risk nonetheless.
It would have made me feel better if you had started out your reply by saying.. "yes there are risks to this vaccine, but..". That way I would know we're working from the same starting point and I could trust that your views are calm and considered, and that you accept the reality that there is indeed risk to taking a foreign substance into your bloodstream.
Many of us know people who have had Covid, and it wasn't a very big deal. Even fat old Donald Trump shrugged it off in a few days; granted he had the best medical care possible. That's not to diminish the loss of loved ones that have surely been taken by Covid. But it can make one question the statistical importance of Covid in the larger scheme of things.
Again, i'm not really arguing with your points, just that they need to be presented with honesty, we shouldn't put a religious halo around vaccines; we should be clear about the risks too.
Regardless, for some rich people those treatments _are_ available. And that may well lead them to the completely rational choice of avoiding the risks associated with a vaccine.
Everyone is different, and can arrive at different decisions completely rationally.
You have a 0.5-1.0% chance to die from COVID-19, a higher chance to be hospitalized and experience serious consequences from that. And the chance to contract the disease is very, very high in many countries right now.
The vaccines have been tested in 30-40,000 people each. The typical serious side effects for vaccines are something like 1 in a million or 1 in a few hundred thousand. Even if the vaccine had an usually high level of side effects, odds are it's still far, far less harmfull than contracting the actual disease.
0.5-1.0% chance to die from COVID-19 assumes an even distribution across all people infected. Which just isn't true, it very much depends on your current state of health.
And again, my main point is that we should be honest about the risks and not pretend they're zero.
I looked this up for a comment some time ago, and for someone in the 20-30 years range, the chance to die was somewhere aroun 1:10,000. That's still far above what you would usually expect for serious side effects of a vaccine (and I'm comparing death with serious side effects right now, so the actual comparison would be even more favorable to the vaccine).
I'm not in the risk group, and I would take the vaccine right now if it was offered to me. Even in the worst case the potential risks are below what a real COVID-19 infection would entail.
It's not just age range, it's individual health, down to the specific person, not a group. Also you have to multiply the risk by the chance that you will actually contract Covid-19, which is very dependent on lifestyle etc.
I'm not trying to talk you personally out of getting the vaccine, I don't think it will turn you into a zombie or some foolishness. I'm just asking you to understand that it is a rational decision for some people to arrive at a different answer.
If you live in the US or in Europe, I don't think the chance to contract COVID-19 is low enough to get anywhere close to where you could make that kind of argument. We're really good at developing vaccines, and they're a category of drugs that is by far the most sensitive to any kind of side effect. This disease is dangerous enough and also widespread enough that I don't see any plausible argument that would make the vaccine more dangerous than the disease.
And the risk is actually almost entirely age-dependent, the other risk factors weren't that significant in studies.
It's not the age of somebody that determines how the virus reacts. The statistics you're referencing categorize age as a proxy for some real-world vulnerabilities that vary in significance by age. That is, worse outcomes due to Covid exposure tend to be more prevalent as age advances.
But that says absolutely zero about any single individual. Each individual, regardless of age group, can have more or less susceptibility than their age group. It is an _individual's_ health and other risk factors that decide the outcome for that individual -- not their membership in an age category. Therefore, each individual must decide their own risk tolerance and remediation plan.
So only age 50+ have at least 0.5% chance to die from COVID-19. These numbers also include everyone in that age range, e.g. the obese, diabetic, immunocompromised. If you know you are healthy, your odds are better. As a healthy 27 year old and something of a fitness fanatic, my odds appear to be 99.98% of surviving at minimum. Due to the reasons I just mentioned, in addition to being on the younger end of the 20-49 age range, my odds are actually quite a bit better than 99.98%, although I don't know the exact number. I'll roll those dice over a vaccine that has been rushed, and will get the vaccine some years in the future if no problems emerge.
Sure that's possible and you are well within your rights to choose this path of action.
But – excuse me for putting this bluntly – it is obviously very selfish. If everybody calculated their risk like you do, the result would be that the pandemic drags on for a few years, a lot of preventable deaths happen + probably a terrible economic downturn. You have the choice to sacrifice a little bit (meaning a tiny chance of vaccine complications) of your own health for the greater good – or you can slack of others doing it for you. Because that's what's going to happen, most people voting "yes" on this thread are making the same calculation you are but deciding to sacrifice a little bit of their own health.
Time has value, it takes time to get it. Also there are unknowns to any new medication and side effects of some vaccines. Of course there's also unknowns to getting covid, but it's at least internally consistent to favor one over the other.
Because it's a new vaccine and the mRNA ones are a completely new type of vaccine. They seem safe in limited use over a short period of time, but we don't know yet what effects they may have in the future.
Also there is an aspect of if you are young and healthy your risk of serious effects from covid is low. Even if your risk of problems from the vaccine is low, if your risk of serious effects from the disease that the vaccine treats is also very low then why bother taking any action.
Nothing is 100% yes or no, but it's safe to say that the vaccine helps reduce the spread of the virus.
Vaccinated people can spread the virus on a (there's a better term for this) surface level, which is why it's still important for them to wear masks and wash hands.
Hypothetical example of how it can spread: an infected person sneezes on a vaccinated person right in the face. That vaccinated person then rubs his face all over an non-vaccinated person. Really high chance the non-vaccinated person is infected.
I also want to emphasize that a vaccinated person that came in contact with the corona virus is far less contagious than an asymptomatic person.
I have heard rumors in the medical field that it’s possible that having had COVID might be considered a preexisting condition in the future. Imagine having COVID now, fully recovering, then developing an unrelated lung disease 10 years later just to find out that insurance won’t cover anything to do with it because they’ll just blame it on COVID.
That paper doesn't show what you're claiming, because it lacked a control group. They explicitly say so:
"The authors observed that neither symptoms nor blood investigations were predictive of organ impairment.
“Causality of the relationship between organ impairment and infection cannot be deduced, but may be addressed by longitudinal follow-up of individuals with organ impairment,” the authors said."
The paper took 201 people who self-reported as long Covid sufferers, and found that 66% of them had something that could be characterized as "organ impairment" when a whole-body MRI scan was conducted. It's not at all clear that this would differ significantly from any random group of people whom you stick in a whole-body MRI scan (let alone a group of people who had recently recovered from any other viral illness). Which is why we don't do them.
Thus far, ~all such "long Covid" research has been anecdotal and/or uncontrolled. The evidence quality is quite poor.
We know about as much about “long covid” as we do about the long term effects of the vaccines. So surely if you’re going to make that argument it should apply both ways?
Early thinking is that the virus still lives in the throat and can still be passed if you have had the vaccine. You won't get sick but the whole problem with this virus is people spreading it because they have not yet developed symptoms. Short answer, it doesn't look like it no.
I've had Covid-19. As far as I know we still don't know if having it leads to immunity but wouldn't having it and recovering be "better" than a vaccine?
If so, why get a vaccine for something you are immune to?
As far as i know, there has been multiple cases in Finland alone. There has been multiple news reports regarding to it. We just don’t know the extent of it yet.
"There was a low repositive rate in recovered COVID-19 patients in Wuhan. Results of virus culturing and contract tracing found no evidence that repositive cases in recovered COVID-19 patients were infectious, which is consistent with evidence from other sources."
Same paper also states that asymptomatic cases are much less likely to be infectious.
Better to say the vast majority of them are later viral shedding or very minor, probably not contagious cases.
There's probably been a few reinfections, and some decent documentation of a couple. If you repeat an experiment millions of times on diverse individuals, you can expect some variation.
There have been cases when genomic analysis was performed during the two infections and it "showed genetically significant differences between each variant associated with each instance of infection".
Having it and recovering from it still occasionally leaves your body altered/damaged in a way we're not sure how to predict/treat. As far as we can tell, the vaccine does not cause the same amount of damage that actually suffering from the disease can cause.
Getting it early and getting immunity works great for fairly mild things like chicken pox, which is less likely to leave permanent/long term damage. But not for something where so many people report that they've still never fully recovered from even months later.
I had it in March at age 33 and I’ve got this barb? Maybe you’d call it in my right lung. X-Rays showed up fine but still noticed it for months where it was a constant pain every breath, even though oxygen levels are fine. It’s finally only a sometime thing now instead of every waking moment.
My wife didn’t get off so “easy”, she coughed for about five months straight until one day she just finally stopped coughing.
I’m in the same boat. I had it and it was super mild so I already...
- have very likely immunity or at least a much better response the next time
- despite having been exposed to it the first time having had super mild symptoms so I don’t need protection from a non threat
- coronaviruses mutate a lot slower and people who had sars-cov-1 still had a t-cell immunity even 10 years after their infection and there is little reason to believe that sars-cov-2 couldn’t be similar
Given that I won’t be offered the vaccine for a long time I luckily don’t have to decide and know that I won’t have it at least until enough production testing was done.
But I was exposed to a really high dose as my wife had picked up COVID at work and I was caring for her, even sleeping with my face right in front of her face all night probably getting exposed to a shipload of virus with every single breath.
Tetanus is highly fatal, 2015 saw 209,000 infections with 59,000 deaths. That includes people who are treated with the vaccine after potential exposure.
It's not a good example of something to which people develop natural immunity, because if you are infected, you'll probably die, and even if not, suffer life-changing injury.
I see immunologists stating that the immunity from the vaccine is likely to be better than from infection (even saying directly that people that have been infected should still get vaccinated).
> It looked at all these components of immunity up to eight months after infection and found that some of these "memory" cells responded to the coronavirus, or parts of it, in more than 90% of people, said Daniela Weiskopf, an immunologist who participated in the study. "This is good news," she said. The decline in response was slow, a sign that immunity could last a long time. But Weiskopf emphasized that "nobody knows" how things will look in a year or 18 months.
> Worldwide, there have been less than 30 cases of known re-infection among COVID-19 survivors, although more are suspected. Experts said the numbers would likely be much higher if most people had not developed immunity.
> "I think that tells us that there's some level of immunity after you've recovered from the primary infection," Wherry said. "We don't know how durable that is."
It's hard to read even this article as anything but "It seems there is a high level of immunity, but we don't know for sure, so let's be careful."
I don't know any reason to say otherwise, except if you are afraid people will get infected voluntarily for immunization.
I’m no anti-vaxxer, but the current situation feels like a scam to me. “Hurry, take this vaccine, save lives!” I’m being asked to suspend critical thinking and accept a chemical into my body under duress and time constraints. “Take it now, this is your time! It’s finally available to you. Don’t you want to resume your normal life?” I’d rather wait and see, even if waiting carries a small, known amount of infection risk. That’s much better than the unknown risk of taking a brand new vaccine in hurry. “While supplies last!”
This sums it up pretty well. I'm not opposed to vaccines, and probably have had a lot more than the average HNer, but I feel like I'm being "sold" this a bit too hard... question everything, as they say.
There is an obvious reason you are being "sold hard". Because this vaccine will save lives and end the pandemic. Just because some person or group conveys urgency doesn't mean you're being scammed or that they're lying.
It's both sad and funny to me that this is the reaction people are having.
Well, there IS a pandemic. So there IS a good reason for "selling it" "a bit hard". It will literally save lives and end a world-wide economy-crippling disease.
Now I agree the process was quicker than usual, that it brings up a lot of questions. But it's the studies we should question, the efficiency, the long term effects. The way it's sold and "advertised" is just equally as dramatic as the disease it's trying to stop, in my opinion.
"It will" is a strong choice of words. The root of the matter is I don't, personally, trust the people doing the selling.
It varies by region but where I'm from, back in April-ish, we were sold: "just two weeks of lockdowns and the virus will die out! everything will be back to normal!". So we did. Businesses shut down, transit basically stopped running, our downtown core was a wasteland. Everyone parroted "stay safe, stay home" back and forth at each other and sat at home for a few weeks. It sucked, everyone had a bad time, lots of busineses had to go out of business, but we all were told it was for the greater good and it'll be worth it. And... it didn't do shit.
Now here we are again. Odds on, in a few months, it'll be either "turns out this vaccine doesn't protect you as well as we thought", or "turns out it only protects you for six months", or "turns out the virus mutated so the vaccine isn't effective at all anymore"? In exchange for, what, testing not only a new vaccine, but a whole new method of vaccination on yourself? Whether that's worth it to you or not is a personal choice, but "it will literally save lives and end [the disease]" is firmly TBD.
I don't know where you're from that you heard that. But from where I'm from, we were told that:
- it was just only the beginning of a massive sh*tstorm, not just "2 weeks of lockdown and we'll be ok"
- the lockdown in April was to mitigate as much as possible the first wave
- a second wave would almost definitely arrive in the winter (hello! it's here! we're in lockdown again, pretty much as planned)
- nothing will be back to normal before we get the vaccine, and even then, it would take months if not years for it to be a thing of the past, and that until then we'd have to do our best to follow the guidelines.
You can't compare scientific proof that something works vs. a government decision taken to "mitigate things".
The spring lockdown helped free beds in hospital and ultimately it saved thousands if not millions of lives worldwide. Period. This is UNDENIABLE.
Also, maybe if some people weren't so doubtful that these decisions were for their own good and stopped throwing tantrums about their "fundamental right to breathe air", we wouldn't have had a second wave at all. Maybe.
Of course, you're right, it doesn't make sense and that's not how it should work. Unfortunately, science and medicine are fields that are largely driven by money. Laboratories don't really care about a vaccine for a disease in Africa that nobody will be able to afford or invest in. They will turn to better markets. There are multiple reasons, the most obvious one is that they're private companies, their goal is to make profit. The second one is that it's a field that requires a lot of resources. So you need a big ROI.
One of the reasons the vaccine for COVID-19 was produced so quickly is not because of some sort of conspiracy, like they had the antidote all along or something. It's just that when there's a real buck to make, it becomes a race between these big pockets companies.
That's one side of it and I don't know enough to cover every aspect of it. Also, it's just my opinion of course and how I see this.
Edit: I'm doubtful about a zombie vaccine being given for free. Most likely in a Walking Dead type scenario, where the economy would completely go down, there wouldn't be any financial incentive to keep the searches going, and no money to back up the researches either. So we'd be scr*wed I think. :o)
There’s been far too much ‘noble lying’ going on during the pandemic for me to have trust in any of these institutions anymore. Aside from the fact that I’d be skeptical of any drug that was rushed to market (especially if it was the first of its type to ever be brought to market), I simply don’t trust anybody involved to be honest about its safety. Even the reporting on how the roll out is going is highly questionable. All reports of potential side effects are disclaimed with weasely statements “no evidence it’s linked to the vaccine”.
If I were in an at risk group I might have a different perspective, but as it stands I’m happy to wait and see how it goes. If I end up never having to take it, even better.
Now that the vaccine is rolling out, all I hear is that only select groups are getting it now, and that the majority of people must wait. By the time most people even get the option to take it, thousands of others will have tried it. There is no rush.
If you're not in one of the early target groups, I would assume that tens of millions will have received it before you - in the USA alone. We should have a lot of data to look at in a short amount of time.
It has been through human testing for 10 months or something like that? We've also had stay at home and social distancing guidelines for about the same amount of time and I think we've had the opportunity to see what effect that's had.
I think in this case what you're highlighting is number of people vaccinated, so you'd like to see more people vaccinated first, rather than increasing the duration of analysis of the existing people that have been vaccinated.
And you’re an illiterate idiot. See? We’ve both made false statements that attack the person rather than the point.
An anti-vaxxer is someone who rejects vaccines in general. I’m rejecting a few specific vaccines on a very rational basis. I’ll wait for you to jump so that I can judge for myself whether I’d like to proceed or not.
I ignore all of the COVID vaccine messaging histrionics. The level of ignorance and political maneuvering out there is astounding.
When I'm afforded the option to get the vaccine, I'll make an assessment of risks based upon data we have at that time vs the risks of contracting COVID.
If I had to make that decision today, I'd take the vaccine. But by the time I'll likely be able to get it in February or so, we'll have millions more data points that I'll be able to consider.
Dito on this.
Also what happens after the vaccine? Is there even something like "after" the vaccine, we are supposed to get this vaccine every 4-6 months until what?
So what is the reason given for it being unethical? Of course I realize there is a tradeoff involved in delaying the rollout of a vaccine but I don't see how that is related to the way vaccines are made, specifically.
Efficacy is still tested with vaccines because there is a statistical expectation of contracting a given disease.
If you give 40,000 people a random mix of placebo and vaccines and then monitor whether or not they contract the target disease, you get an indication of efficacy by comparing the vaccinated group to the placebo group.
What, why would you need to do that? That's not how preventive medicine is tested.
Please explain how would your proposal be any more valid than a proper controlled study where you do the treatment on portion of your participants and wait how it works out for them.
Scientific method uses statistics and can make reasonable assumption that for large enough randomised groups the collective exposure is the same without strict lab conditions. From the group size and number of infections, you can calculate the confidence of the result you find.
Keep in mind that even under strict lab conditions your results would never be 100% certain.
There is double blind studies that tests efficacy of new vaccines for diseases that already had an approved vaccine. And those studies do find differences in efficacy (just because the old vaccine was 96% effective doesn't mean the new one can't do better) as well as in occurrence rate of side effects.
There have even been studies where the vaccine that you get in the control arm of the study is the vaccine against Meningitis and then after a year or two they do give you what ever vaccine you had not received yet. (Sorry, forgot against which disease the vaccine under test was protecting.)
And of course there is double blind studies where you get three injections, one of which is saline, two are active. They are given a few weeks apart, you don't know the order and they check antibody level in the blood every week.
That would speed up the test, sure. But as far as the quality of the results goes, why is that different from the existing test where a large number of vaccinated (real and placebo) subjects gets exposed/infected? It's still testing efficacy.
Challenge studies get performed on non-human (animal) test subjects (this was done for the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine), and there's a volunteer human challenge study planned in the UK for January. A challenge study is one where you intentionally give a live virus to your subjects.
Arguably, releasing your subjects into an environment full of live virus, such as the United States, is a kind of challenge study, which rapidly delivers efficacy data. This is why approval could happen so much faster than usual for these vaccines.
This is some real forest for the trees bullshit here.
It likely would have been good to do challenge trials with the vaccine groups (to speed up the testing). It would of course not be nice to do it with the placebo group.
But you are plucking a single evidentiary standard out of some dark place and then asserting that it is the only useful one. Of course it is not, and Phase 3 vaccine trials are well designed to provide clear evidence of effectiveness. Go look up the Pfizer result going around on the memes if you don't believe that.
I will take it after a year or two. The US did a great job at politicizing the virus such that I don't really trust that pharma companies actually did their due diligence with regard to testing and safety measures. I accept that doctors and scientists will take it under the guise of them "knowing it's safe", and I accept that lots of people will say "If they're doing it, you should too", but I think this strategy just generally ignores common sense. Doctors use and prescribe drugs all the time with unintended adverse side effects, the difference here is that those side effects are known and well studied. A vaccine that showed up to save the world (and also start a culture war in some countries)? I do not accept that the powers at be have verified this drug's safety.
I think that this vaccine is a choice, and once it's readily available it is still a choice. If you choose not to get it, you are accepting the possibility that you might get COVID and die. Once the vaccine becomes available to my age group and health demographic, the people that actually need it will have been given the option to make their choice as well.
These things aren't cut and dry, but probably what you mean is that without the vaccine you're increasing the possibility of passing the disease on to at risk groups.
At risk populations have the same choices I have. I will choose to wait because I am not at risk. The risk level is obviously a factor that should play a part in making an individual's choice.
Now, for the people that _cannot_ get the vaccine for whatever reason, ultimately my decision is definitely more selfish, in that I am taking precautions in favor of my own safety as opposed to theirs. I guess I don't think this is unreasonable though?
Yes, emphasis is sometimes not clear, so just highlighting that you yourself are unlikely to die as you highlighted, but the increased likelihood of passing the disease on to those who can't take the vaccine is of greater emphasis
Hey, we don't really know how safe it is to the extent we understand other drugs. But we've bounded the risk to be much, much less than COVID in almost all populations. (This may not end up being true of adolescents, but there's substantial reasons for adolescents to get vaccinated even if we cannot yet prove that the risk is lower than COVID.
> I think that this vaccine is a choice, and once it's readily available it is still a choice. If you choose not to get it, you are accepting the possibility that you might get COVID and die.
Generally, a whole lot of the reasons why we take vaccines is to provide collective protection. E.g. it's not critical that I be vaccinated for pertussis because of my own risk of whooping cough.
First, I appreciate you having a legitimate conversation about this stuff instead of dismissing my arguments for the aforementioned political issues. I think skepticism is fair on both sides.
> But we've bounded the risk to be much, much less than COVID in almost all populations.
Are you sure? And by sure I mean, there is enough data to prove this statement to be true? How?
> Generally, a whole lot of the reasons why we take vaccines is to provide collective protection.
This makes, sense, but is "collective protection" a right now thing? Or is collective protection the goal of a vaccination program over the course of 5-10 years? If the latter is true, is the stance of "I will wait 1-2 years until there is actual data" even at odds with this idea?
> Are you sure? And by sure I mean, there is enough data to prove this statement to be true? How?
Reasonably sure. Even looking at the low death rate 25-34 population, deaths have been about 4 per 100,000 population with only 15% infected so far; a natural trek to herd immunity will presumably kill 6-12 more per 100k. There will be even greater amounts of morbidity and hospitalization, too, than outright death.
Compare to ~22000 dosed in trials; two of the vaccinated died from causes that don't look related to the vaccine, and four of the placebo group died. This mostly lets us exclude a high death rate from the vaccine. Several in the placebo group ended up hospitalized from severe COVID; none in the vaccine group ended up hospitalized from COVID or vaccine related side effects.
Indeed, the entire judgment call made in emergency use authorization is exactly that: the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
> This makes, sense, but is "collective protection" a right now thing? Or is collective protection the goal of a vaccination program over the course of 5-10 years?
It's a "right now" thing. We can get all the way there in 6 months, and get significant benefit in 3 months. To be clear, the former doesn't mean "cases knocked down to zero", but instead infections knocked down by >95%.
> Compare to ~22000 dosed in trials; two of the vaccinated died from causes that don't look related to the vaccine, and four of the placebo group died. This mostly lets us exclude a high death rate from the vaccine. Several in the placebo group ended up hospitalized from severe COVID; none in the vaccine group ended up hospitalized from COVID or vaccine related side effects.
How frequently are vaccine side effects measured 1-3 years out? How frequently do vaccines present side effects on the 1-3 year timeframe?
> Indeed, the entire judgment call made in emergency use authorization is exactly that: the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
Had that judgement call not been made in one of the least competent governments in US history, I think it might carry more weight, no?
> the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
I would challenge this statement in that I don't believe it possible to fully understand the risks yet. Is 22000 over ~three months the normal amount of time a vaccine trial runs (I am asking somewhat rhetorically, in that we've heard time and time again that this is not the case)
> How frequently are vaccine side effects measured 1-3 years out? How frequently do vaccines present side effects on the 1-3 year timeframe?
Basically never: negative effects are overwhelmingly weighted to close to administration. This could, of course, always be the first vaccine to really do this. Indeed, most childhood vaccine trials have been about a year long.
Much more interesting / troublesome is what immunogenicity is at 1 years / 3 years / 5 years. That's why vaccines have failed at the end of their trials: efficacy isn't durable enough, not that too many people get side effects 2.5 years in.
There's a fair chance we'll find that these vaccines don't offer great long term protection. So far protection seems to be holding up OK... But that's next year's problem.
> Had that judgement call not been made in one of the least competent governments in US history, I think it might carry more weight, no?
We have plenty of other competent regulators making the same choice, and the review process followed seems reasonable. The pressure from the top to speed it up further is yucky, I admit.
> I would challenge this statement in that I don't believe it possible to fully understand the risks yet.
Well, sure. We can't know exactly the probability that it will turn us all into vampires a year from now. We can't exactly know the risks from letting COVID-19 doing its thing unimpeded, either. But the former risk looks pretty small and the latter risk looks pretty big, and it's not like we've not studied both pretty extensively.
> Really? We've got a lot more data on COVID than we do on the vaccines.
Sure, but we don't know much about long-term morbidity tied to COVID infection, or exactly how many people it will get in the end. Even if I've got it all wrong--- the vaccine is riskier than our current data implies in the age 24-30 group, and fewer people from age 24-30 will get it because things burnt themselves out earlier-- what about the risks of long-term morbidity from COVID-19 infection in this group? Even that alone dwarfs likely vaccine risks. A whole lot of people are getting hospitalized, and even only 5% of them ending up with some degree of long term disability is daunting.
There's big error bars all around, but they largely don't overlap, and COVID has profound downside risks.
I suggest that Western culture's understanding of risk is immature. Is it the case that driving at the speed limit is safe and driving 5% faster is dangerous? Of course not. Driving at any speed carries risk; driving faster, on a given road, in given conditions, is usually more dangerous; and society needs to decide the degree of risk it will accept. (This applies especially in cases such as driving, where the benefit of speeding accrues to the driver, but much of the risk is imposed on others without their consent.)
A better approach to the safety of the vaccine is to ask whether it's safer to take it or to abstain, and who bears the risk in each case. I accept that the numbers won't be the same for everyone: they depend on age, sex, gregariousness, medical condition, culture, job, and perhaps (I don't know) ethnicity. However, people I know who've had Covid-19 say it's brutal: even if it doesn't kill you, it can give you a really rough time. I know of four friends of friends who've died of it, including one in his twenties. And let's not forget long Covid, which can strike at any age. Set against that the clinical trials that the vaccine has undergone, with trials halted if even one person became seriously ill. Finally, there seems to be at least a reasonable possibility that being vaccinated will reduce a person's ability to infect others.
All in all, any of the leading vaccines available in the West look like a better bet, for me and the people around me, than just crossing my fingers and hoping.
Should I take it now or wait? There seems little doubt that vaccines will be refined over the coming years. A vaccine taken in 2023 will probably be safer, and certainly better understood, than one taken in 2021. But someone who waits two years has endured two extra years' risk of suffering, spreading and possibly dying from Covid. You would have to think that vaccines are much more dangerous than I do for that to be a reasonable trade-off.
> that you may be spreading it to other people who may contract it.
Yes, but, given my age/health, wouldn't the people already at risk already have been offered the vaccine? And if they opted against it, they also made their choice?
And for the people that are unable to get the vaccine for whatever reason, isn't that a scenario in which I feel it's either me putting my safety at risk instead of them putting theirs?
I am sympathetic towards people that are allergic or for whatever other reason cannot get the vaccine, but in the same way that they opted to not take the vaccine to protect their health, is that not exactly what I'm suggesting? I do not feel the vaccine is verified safe and am attempting to protect my health?
Right now its 310 YES to 39 NO. From what I've been reading in the (fake?) news, surveys and polls in the USA, I'm actually surprised to see so many yeses.
Well - The hacker news community is not even remotely representative of the U.S. population (nor typical pops in other countries I suspect). If you thought it was, then you'd think 90% of everyone in America voted for Biden. But it was much closer to 50-50. So these forums are only useful for understanding the positions of people on these sorts of forums.
Yes there are other countries in the world on this forum, you'll find Trump is not favoured in many countries like Germany where opinion polling was around 9/10 disproving of Trump. Many grains of salt to get that to 50/50
Also, ballpark 20% of Americans already had the disease, and the benefit for them (while still there) is lower. Also pregnancy. So multiple reasons why 10% is probably not crazy. For what it was worth, I was also a bit confused by the order, as I think they randomize it or something and almost tapped the wrong one.
Immunity from having COVID lasts about 3 months, it seems. Immunity from the vaccine will last for a year or more and will still work as expected even if you had COVID. “I’ve had COVID” is a bad reason to refuse the vaccine.
This is simply incorrect, although I don't blame you for thinking so since there were some sensationalist news articles tripping over themselves to imply that it was the case.
Rates of COVID reinfection remain vanishingly small.
Mind to share sources about the immunity lasting only 3 months?
From what I read, Corona-virii are in general slow to mutate and infected people should be immune for a longer time. Also, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this idea that a vaccine should neatly work in a way that it would be recommended to take it on every season smells of a pharma PR submarine.
It comes from a misunderstanding: antibodies last around that long, but so far no one's T-Cells have stopped reacting to the virus. Immunity lasting only as long as the antibodies is also how I understood it to work until mid-summer.
Yeah, I remember an article from October claiming only 5 cases of reinfection. To me these are more likely to have happened due to the people having compromised immune systems than to some specific property of the novel corona.
> I also think most of us don’t know someone who believes reptilian aliens in human form control all the major nations of Earth.
Really? I know multiple people who genuinely believe this. Yes you'll always get some constant of random picks, but you also have to understand that our social circles hugely limit us from representative samples of the population's opinions. The only people I know who have actually been in crazy cat lady houses were because they worked as repairmen, since there you'll get a sample of the population which needs their furnace looked at sometimes
Pregnant women or women who are planning on becoming pregnant should not have it according to UK government guidelines. That’s a pretty good reason to click NO.
Those two had severe pre-existing allergies (to the point where they carry epi pens), and had non-fatal reactions to the vaccine.
If you’re in the 0.1% of the population with severe allergies, you should skip most vaccines. Herd immunity is a thing, and (most — probably these) vaccines will protect you by making the people around you stop spreading it.
If you’re in this category, you’d have already been told so by your doctor.
No your final point isn't true. These people were administered the vaccine by their doctors. The simple fact of the matter is that this vaccine hasn't had rigorous testing like other vaccines hence them finding out new information about after it's been administered
Not the same. According to a former Pfizer employee, there is a ~70% risk that it could cause sterility in women. At this point (a) I don't know if this guy's a whack job or (b) whether he was implying permanent or temporary sterility. All I know is that I wouldn't want my daughter to take it until there's more certainty about the risk factors.
If GP is referring to what I think he is, it's not an 'unnamed' former Pfizer employee, it was Michael Yeadon.
I'm honestly unaware of where the 70% number came from (I may simply have missed it), but he, alongside former Council of Europe Parliament chair Wolfgang Wodarg jointly filed a document with the EMA urging that a large-scale roll-out of the vaccine be delayed until further trials could be ran on it which accounted for pregnancy [5].
His primary concern was that it would impact placental development.
Michael Yeadon worked with Pfizer between 1995, and 2011 where he was the Chief Science Officer, and Vice President of the company's R&D division focused on allergy and respiratory illness [0].
In 2011, Pfizer decided to narrow its focus down to five distinct areas of research, and closed down Yeadon's lab [1, 2].
Yeadon, along with two other colleagues secured venture funding from Pfizer's investment fund, and license from Pfizer to continue their research as an independent company called Ziarco, which continued to operate until it was purchased by Novartis in 2016 in 2016[3, 4]
Since cashing out, Yeadon has operated as a research consultant [0].
Yeadon is notably a lock-down skeptic, and has made claims that London has long since reached herd-immunity. He's a biochemist, not a virologist. I don't know how correct he is or isn't. But his history suggests that he's not someone who's opinion on pharmaceuticals should be taken lightly. Wodarg has similarly suggested that the COVID pandemic is overhyped. Wodarg's a politician with some medical education. I don't know that he's anywhere near authoritative.
Note that there are differing professional opinions on this. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine recommends no special exclusion of pregnant women from vaccine trials or vaccine campaigns: [1] [2]
“Despite the categorization of pregnancy as a high-risk condition for severe COVID-19, hospitalization, and mortality, pregnancy remains an exclusion for participation in vaccine trials. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) and other leading organizations, including the National Academy of Medicine, have consistently advocated for the inclusion of pregnant and lactating women in vaccination trials, particularly when the following criteria are met: (1) pregnancy poses increased susceptibility to or severity of a disease; (2) the best approach to protect the infant is through passive placental antibody transfer, which provides the most efficient and direct protection to the newborn before an infant can be vaccinated, and (3) there is an active outbreak.”
“In general, SMFM strongly recommends that pregnant women have access to COVID-19 vaccines in all phases of future vaccine campaigns, and that she and her healthcare professional engage in shared decision-making regarding her receipt of the vaccine. Counseling should balance available data on vaccine safety, risks to pregnant women from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and a woman’s individual risk for infection and severe disease. As data emerge, counseling will likely shift, as some vaccines may be more suitable for pregnant women. mRNA vaccines, which are likely to be the first vaccines available, do not contain a live virus but rather induce humoral and cellular immune response through the use of viral mRNA. Healthcare professionals should also counsel their patients that the theoretical risk of fetal harm from mRNA vaccines is very low.”
Dead people and newborns also should not take the vaccine. What’s your point?
The poll’s intent is to understand why one would not want to take it, not whether they should. The government already makes that choice for you. See “People with allergies should avoid the vaccine.”
Well, dunno if I should explain my reasoning but here goes...
For the same reason I never got a rabies vaccine until having to work in close proximity with rabid animals. Up until that point, my chances of dying from rabies were pretty slim to none.
Likewise, my chances of severe complications, death, or even experiencing any symptoms at all are slim to none. The at risk people around me will be likely vaccinated, so i'm not putting them at risk.
Now, the rabies vaccine came with some known risk, a bit higher than others, hence why it's only given to people who request it or need it.
This covid vaccine is brand new, rushed, the manufacturers are legally exempt from liability for damages the vaccines cause most places in the world and it's a mostly new technology not really tested or used before.
There are potential side effects, these side effects are potentially long term and severely debilitating and despite being a low risk, it's still a higher risk for me than experiencing anything terrible from covid.
So, why put myself at some unknown risk from some unknown thing over something that, is more than likely not, going to cause me severe problems?
There are potential side effects, these side effects are potentially long term and severely debilitating and despite being a low risk, it's still a higher risk for me than experiencing anything terrible from covid.
It's not known with any kind of certainty which carries more risk of long term side effects. Or aggregate harm if you want to look at it that way.
The vaccines do seem to reduce risk of severe Covid, across age groups (One didn't have any severe disease in the vaccine group).
For one because 3% of 7 billion is a lot. For another, because a good percentage of those who survive will have super long recovery times and suffer needlessly. For a third, because are you willing to risk it being considered a preexisitng condition and not having your lungs covered by any medical insurance in the future?
And lastly because it’s really fucking dumb to skip it because “I’ll only kill 3% of my friends and family.” Don’t be a nitwit. Get the fucking vaccine.
> If those 3% of people are vaccinated, then why does it even matter if anyone else is?
They can't all be. A significant chunk of the people at risk are also immunocompromised, which means the vaccine will be counter indicated and they rely on the disease not reaching them.
In order for the disease not to reach them, you need herd immunity.
Also, do you want to have a normal life again? Take the damn vaccine. We won't get to looser restrictions without achieving herd immunity, and herd immunity needs 60 percent of people, not the 3 percent at risk.
"I'll let others get it and be part of the 40 percent who want to have a normal life ASAP but won't do anything to contribute to that" is the most selfish shit.
Yes, that line of logic requires this to be true. But although it hasn't been proven in the field (since, you know, we have just started handing them out), it is the desired (and likely) outcome of the vaccine.
This entire exercise in waiting for the vaccine was so we could get there.
> There are potential side effects, these side effects are potentially long term and severely debilitating and despite being a low risk, it's still a higher risk for me than experiencing anything terrible from covid.
Your risk perception is way off. Like orders of magnitude off. You're also assuming the risks of catching COVID are known and minor, but the risks of a vaccine are unknown and possibly off.
In reality it's the inverse. We have well over a hundred years of research into how vaccines interact with our bodies, as well as similar knowledge of things like manufacturing safety, injection best-practices, etc. While the exact mechanism of the mRNA vaccines is new to vaccines, it's been studied very closely in tens of thousands of people over several years (there have been several mRNA vaccines in the pipeline, but due to less immediate advantages their approval is slower going). It's mechanism is new for vaccines, but well understood.
COVID on the other hand is a virus where some of the immediate, worst effects are known and feel safer. But that's completely not true. The immediate effects we know are very dangerous (As a 39yr old male, I stand a 1/2000 chance of dying if I get the disease) and you're not factoring the risk of unknown long-term effects, which are unknown. It's entirely possible that damage done from the virus could have long-term hidden consequences that we won't know for many years.
So then you're left with your risk of catching the virus. Of course, this varies greatly based on behavior and region. You may feel safe, and you may indeed be relatively so, but of the hundreds of thousands of people who found out they tested positive today I'm willing to bet a good chunk of them felt just as safe as you.
>I'm willing to bet a good chunk of them felt just as safe as you.
Except, I don't care if I test postive or not. If I get sick enough i'll go to the hospital i'll deal with it the same as I would any other disease that puts me in the hosptial. Until then, i'll keep doing what i've doing wearing a mask when I need to and respectfully maintaining distance from people.
The 1/2000 could be valid for your age group (we will need to check the real number of people who caught it be sure of the IFR) but is not necessary accurate for you (could be more or less).
In France, in Marseilles, they studied all people who died from covid in the hopsital during the first episode. They calculated the Charlson score for each patient. What they found is that very large majority of people who died have a low life expectancy and all expect 2 patients have one or more co-morbidities (cancer, diabetes, etc).
So if you are healthy then you real risk is below the average of the same age group.
Young and healthy, don't really care to get covid as risk is very low. But the vaccine is new we never know what we could discover about its effect in 10 years
This argument, while technically true, is relatively dismissive of all that we have learned about the virus.
Of primary importance, COVID-19 appears to be easily and completely cleared by the human immune system and does not appear to become latent by settling in immune privileged areas or by integrating itself into the human genome or body in any other way (like Epstein-Barr, Herpesvirus, HIV, etc.)
Outside of the mainstream media and in the medical research literature COVID-19 has been thought to be easily "curable" since early on in the pandemic. In my opinion there appeared to be more uncertainty around the FDA and the rapid development timelines than there ever was around whether or not an effective and complete treatment could be developed.
A severe infection or cytokine storm may obviously cause lasting damage. I do not mean to suggest that everyone will be off the hook in the future!
You're correct in principle, but when weighing the "unknown long term risks" of a vaccine versus the "unknown long term risks" of COVID itself it really needs to be an apple to apples comparison.
We know both the virus and the vaccine will be out of your system within a short period of time. So any long term effects would have to be derived from what happens while they're in your system. The vaccine generates a few proteins, which your immune system learns to fight off in short order. The virus generates similar proteins, but continues to replicate many times over, attacking your cells and triggering a much more severe immune response as it goes.
So while there are unknown long-term risks for both, I think it is pretty safe to say the number of vectors for long term consequences are much more numerous with the virus.
I think my original comment was maybe misconstrued. I stated plainly that COVID could cause lasting damage just as any other virus. It just doesn't seem there is much to support that it causes damage above and beyond that of other viruses are capable of and for which long term therapies and treatments exist and are well understood. Certainly there isnt anything that I have seen which substantiates that COVID itself can persist in the body and continue to wreck havoc after the body is able to clear the infection, but no doubt it can do serious and potentially lasting damage.
I absolutely cannot agree more strongly that the long term consequences of any of the COVID vaccines will be far fewer than those of the virus itself.
What do you think about all these people with long covid then? I've seen studies suggesting that it's pretty common, as well as anectodal observations, although I don't have any links handy off the top of my head.
I'm not a doctor but as I said in my earlier comment, I think the literature supports that most of this is just damage from the directly infected cells (lung, organ, nerve) that the body will eventually mostly repair given appropriate nutrition and time. But certainly for some people certainly there may be permanent damage.
A better way to state my point was to say that other diseases can cause exactly the same types of cell damage, and having, say, reduced lung function or some neuropathy going forward after a COVID infection are not themselves new and novel medical problems.
I have had COVID despite my best attempts to do everything possible not to contract it. For complete transparency here, I have a strongly vested interest in knowing the truth of this matter. I agree that there is not a strong consensus yet. Sorry I do not have great references at hand to share right now either.
There's nothing particularly special about this vaccine (EDIT: okay, the mRNA is a little special), and we data information about long-term negative effects of past vaccines ([0] has positive events, plus several false positives[0]). Overall, sure looks like the risk is substantially lower than the risk of COVID-19 is, including for a young, healthy person.
From a community perspective, no, because AFAIK no vaccine confers sterilising immunity, so my being vaccinated isn't likely to help reduce transmission. I will be very happy to see human studies that prove otherwise. It's be shown that AZD1222-vaccinated macaques still spread virus, with upper respiratory viral loads the same as controls.
From a personal perspective, no, because my age-based health risk, and my local community transmission rates approach zero, so vaccination has negligible upside at this point in time and space for me.
I might see data that could change either perspective and my willingness to be vaccinated. Also if I need to travel internationally I may be willing or forced to do so.
That's an interesting take. There are a lot of negative affects caused by covid too. Disposable masks, boxes for shipping, social distancing means you need to build more so people are spaced out, public transit is inefficient since everyone is, etc.
I was always pro-vaccination, but this is the first time I see a vaccine developed so quickly, and like many others, it makes me uneasy.
If I'm not mistaken, some countries like France still remember such vaccines that went wrong. Russians have zero trust in their government and its Sputnik vaccine.
I will get the vaccine eventually, but I don't mind not being in front of the queue.
There are barely 80 votes at the moment of writing this comment, of which barely 10 are a "NO", so it's a bit early for "high percentage". (Edit: Now it's 73/(798 + 279 + 73), less than 7%, so the point stands.) But I'm a "NO", FWIW. And while I'm not surprised by the "high percentage" of "YES" votes because of HN demographics, I do not approve. I mean, I don't really care what other people do with their lives, but this shouldn't be expected to be the default choice.
For the record, vaccines are not a controversial topic in my country like they seem to be in the USA. Kids are vaccinated at school, I received numerous vaccines during my life, some of them totally optional and quite expensive, which I paid for anyway, because it felt like a safer way to be. And of course I do not think vaccines are an evil plan of Bill Gates to... I'm not even sure what the crazy conspiracy theory about that is supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure there is some.
But I am a crazy conspiracy theorist in a sense that I firmly believe that COVID-19 is hugely overhyped. Of course, I'm scared and ashamed of saying that, because nowadays this seems to be a stronger version of saying "Hitler did nothing wrong", but you are asking about "why no", so here we are.
Basically, it's a trade off between reasons to do it and reasons not to (as always).
Is there a reason to avoid doing it? Well, yes. Basically, expectation that everyone should do it is that reason: the topic is insanely hot, and it's never a good thing. This is a huge business opportunity for every pharmaceutical company that gets to push their vaccine right now, and this is some hastily cooked shit you expect me to take. Some of these vaccines are quite a novelty, which is not a bad thing on its own, but this is unlike most vaccines I have ever taken, which are basically decades old and literally millions of people have taken them before me. Maybe it's totally safe, maybe it isn't. No couple-months-long trial will ever answer that.
Is there a reason to take it? Well, sure. Like there is a reason to take a flu vaccine. Which I don't do, because there are new mutations every year, and there are countless more versions of "common cold". Yes, people die of that, and it's never a pleasant experience, and I live in a cold climate, where this is a very common seasonal thing, but it's just how things are. It's ok. And I'm not going to elaborate on all "Hitler did nothing wrong" thing, because what I've said so far is more than enough to trigger someone, but, well, I know people that had been sick with COVID-19. I contacted them in person when they were already sick, and it just so happens that neither of us was wearing any mask. I wasn't really a responsible citizen all the time. It doesn't seem that the stakes are much higher than with a flu. For some of people it seemed to be more like a really light version of a common cold.
So there's a little of "no" vs a little of "yes" and it just so happens that "no" overweights quite confidently.
Maybe it is fair to say that I should've voted "I'll wail", because this "no" isn't final. But then no "yes" is final either, anything can happen, the last year should've taught us that if anything. And I don't have any specific date I have to wait for. The point is, currently I'm not going to do that, and I hope it stays this way.
> I firmly believe that COVID-19 is hugely overhyped
I've read your concerns and take the gravest possible offense to this. It's not just about the new coronavirus, but what comes next. Tools like crispr are now within the means of the nuclear boyscout, who can unleash an airborne pathogen upon humanity that performs genetic engineering at scale. All that's required is the will to do so. Stuff like that frightens me far more. If the reaction to this new coronavirus is what's needed to help humanity prepare, then we're likely to be far safer and healthier down the road.
It's not about what happens to you or to your healthy friends. The major difference here is the long incubation period. You catch the virus, you become contagious, you pass it on, and a few days later you develop your mild cold symptoms. You go through it and you are fine. But by allowing yourself to get infected in the first place, you have spread the virus to an unknown number of people. Down the road, perhaps months later, if not enough people have vaccinated to end the pandemic, you may have indirectly caused deaths among the more vulnerable.
Surely the same logic applies to all infectious diseases, and we should all get yearly flu shots, permanently practice social distancing, wear masks, etc. lest we maybe be complicit in the deaths of the vulnerable?
In some countries people wear masks when they have any respiratory diseases and do not touch the strangers they are greeting, which seems sensible. Otherwise, it depends on the parameters of the diseases you are trying to stay safe against.
The thing about the flu is that you develop symptoms earlier, so the window of oportunity for unknowing transmission is shorter (on average). From what we know at this time, it's a less deadly disease than COVID-19. And it mutates quickly, with each season bringing new strains. I think if it was possible to erradicate it completely through vaccination that would be something worth considering, too. Nobody likes that it exists.
Thanks for your post and FWIW I don't think your views are crazy, selfish, unsympathetic or offensive at all.
If only the global attention and resources that have gone into the covid crisis could be channelled into the many equally, or more serious issues affecting humanity and the planet today (e.g poverty, oppression, war, over population, pollution, tuberculosis etc.). But they are not the new hot shiny problem, just our boring, faulty and irreplaceable legacy system.
From what I'm able to gather, a COVID infection produces robust immunity in most people, which is expected to last several years.
Having recovered completely from such an infection, I should be fine without it, and vaccines generally don't feel great and are not, in fact, without risk.
I think vaccines are a wonderful technology, to be clear. I'll get one for COVID only if it's standing between me and, say, getting on an airplane or entering a foreign country, which, let's be real: it probably will. States see like a state, after all; you can't just be immune to infection, you have to be legibly immune.
My parents just recovered from COVID and were told by their doctor that the current thinking is getting COVID gives you immunity for at least 90 days. Could be more, but they are not telling people to rely on it beyond 90.
Where did you get the information that it was several years?
I just keep pointing out that this is, in fact, how vaccines work, and hoping for the best.
To whom it may concern: vaccines simulate the process triggered in the immune system by recovery from infection. They don't float around in your body for years: they create immunity the same way the disease itself does. More or less: obviously you don't get sick!
Which is great, I hadn't been that sick in ten years, it was pretty awful. Please get vaccinated if you haven't gotten COVID. If you have, well, maybe you want to do it just in case? I do not.
I elected "NO" because I have already have had COVID-19 and verified antibodies, and an mRNA vaccine is unlikely to provide any additional level of protection. I believe this should have been a separate option.
I abstained from voting for the same reason. It seems likely that people with a high enough level of antibodies will at least be at the very back of the line for vaccination.
Two nasal swabs taken when I had symptoms did not give a positive result (Abbott Labs IDNOW test), so after I recovered I requested an antibody panel and was tested for COV-2 IgG and IgM. Tests were done on Abbott Labs equipment (though the results sheet did not specify the particular assay - there are 2). My results were a high multiple of what would be considered 'positive' for both and were consistent with the timeframe of my illness. More info here: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-disease-2019...
My insurance covered the cost of all my testing as it was done in conjunction with a televisit with my GP. I hear that it is available for approximately $60 if you just pay retail for it. If you give blood at your local blood bank, many are offering the antibody test as an incentive to donate.
Like many others (from reading the sister comments) I voted "NO" because I already had Covid-19, not because I don't trust the vaccination or vaccinations in general.
I feel reasonably confident my overall health is good enough that if I got COVID it would be OK.
The vaccine, while probably fine, seems like more of a wildcard to me. It seems like a low-probability lottery ticket to bad news, whereas COVID seems like a lower-probability lottery ticket to bad news.
(Of course, the government may force the issue. I hope not, though. My body, my choice and all that.)
You should be adding up the probability of complications to all your loved ones that you unknowingly spread it to should you get infected, too.
(The same reason I usually get a flu shot: it's not that I can't withstand the flu, it's that there are those around me who might not withstand it. I don't want to be responsible for having passed that on to someone.)
I'm not telling anyone I had the vaccine when I didn't. They're free to avoid me if they want.
Many things we selfishly do endanger others. Ever driven a car?
But honestly, in my gut, I don't feel like I'm endangering people. I'm doing the thing that I think will most likely make me healthy, and that will most likely result in best outcomes for others, too.
I may have some bias here because the only 2 times I've gotten the flu as an adult are the two times I got the the flu shot, like you're supposed to do. So maybe that's just coincidence, but my operating theory now is, no more flu shots until I get the flu again. If I do, then I'll reconsider.
> Many things we selfishly do endanger others. Ever driven a car?
Yes, and I take various precautions when doing so to reduce the risk to those around me. But, driving a car gets me from point A to B. There's a trade-off. Near as I can tell from the available data from studies on the new vaccines, the risk and consequences of getting COVID outweigh the risks and consequences of getting the vaccine, perhaps by several orders of magnitude.
The number of both cases & deaths have reached nation-wide highs, and basically all states are seeing upticks in prevalence, likely to be made worse by Christmas. The tests on the vaccines have shown it to be effective, and have had minimal side-effects (I've heard some reports of non-life-threatening allergic reaction, and 1 more serious case that is being investigated. There were 43,000 people in the Pfizer study alone, I think. That is significantly better than the confirmed COVID-19 case rate. https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/09/covid-19-vaccine-from-pf...)
> I may have some bias here because the only 2 times I've gotten the flu as an adult are the two times I got the the flu shot, like you're supposed to do. So maybe that's just coincidence, but my operating theory now is, no more flu shots until I get the flu again. If I do, then I'll reconsider.
It's just coincidence:
> studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.
i think the only place i disagree with you is that in my mind we really have no idea about longer-term possible side effects of the vaccine. it's a totally novel, new kind of vaccine, right?
i agree the flu shot is probably coincidence, but at least until/if i get the flu w/o it, i'm going to be guided by my first-hand experience for now. if i get the flu again, i will do more research and reconsider.
It's nice to believe this, but having a flu jab is only proven to protect yourself. It's not sterilising immunity so you can still become infected, shed virus, and infect others while asymptomatic.
It's quite dangerous if a lot people don't get that the covid vaccines also aren't proved (and are unlikely) to contain transmission. Risk is folks think that we will not longer need to care about hygiene, masks, isolation, quarantine and tracing once most people have been vaccinated.
> It's nice to believe this, but having a flu jab is only proven to protect yourself. It's not sterilising immunity so you can still become infected, shed virus, and infect others while asymptomatic.
This directly contradicts the CDC:
> Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you, including those who are more vulnerable to serious flu illness, like babies and young children, older people, and people with certain chronic health conditions.
This isn't a contradiction at all. GP is saying it isn't proven to protect others. Your CDC quote says it "may" protect others.
I don't know the actual science here - but they could very well have zero evidence that it protects others and still correctly say that getting the flu vaccine may protect others.
I'm young, I was in good overall health, I took precautions, I developed covid symptoms 2 weeks ago and I'm fighting it off in a hospital right now. I came in with partially collapsed lungs and pneumonia. I'm expected to be here until next week. This virus is something from hell. It is a miserable and scary experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
I would take a vaccine (only Pfizer or Moderna) and the associated risks over the experience I'm having now 10/10.
I voted NO and here's my reasons: I believe there's enough science to support my expectation that if/when I get covid it will be mild to no symptoms case - my body can take care of it without a vaccine. And for the vaccine - so far I don't like the odds - reportedly 0.6% of population have allergic reaction to it. I'm not a big fan of auto-immune issues so I'll take my chances elsewhere.
If you are genuinely curious, I'm worried about long term effects from this vaccine.
It's one of the most quickly developed vaccines ever. Being rushed by everyone in society and everyone is guilting people into getting it. They did trials but long term effects take decades to discover. Doctors used to recommend specific brands of cigarettes for example.
It's not illogical or unintelligent to be skeptical of the long term adverse effects of this vaccine. Plus I can stay avoiding crowds. I've been working remotely for years and don't have travel plans for a while.
Reckless disregard for normal bioethics is likely what created and released novel COVID19 in the first place, and the "fast-tracked" vaccine is the same thing again. Just get a tan instead.
I've had Covid-19. As far as I know we still don't know if having it leads to immunity but wouldn't having it and recovering be "better" than a vaccine?
If so, why get a vaccine for something you are immune to?
Honestly, introspecting, I’ve got no good feeling about it, and no case made for it has convinced me, yet. Under these circumstances I don’t do things.
I voted to wait. It's because I'm in an age and fitness bracket where I'm unlikely to be in serious danger from becoming infected, and a lifestyle bracket where I'm unlikely to be infected at all. I expect supply will be limited at first, so someone staring down a lot more risk than I am should get it.
> I voted to wait. It's because I'm in an age and fitness bracket where I'm unlikely to be in serious danger from becoming infected, and a lifestyle bracket where I'm unlikely to be infected at all. I expect supply will be limited at first, so someone staring down a lot more risk than I am should get it.
That's my situation too, but I voted yes under the assumption that I won't be allowed to take it until all the higher risks groups have gotten it.
But I'm in America and assumed in January/February that we'd handle this pandemic far better than we actually did. So maybe I'll be unpleasantly surprised again to find the first doses allocated by some corruptly shortsighted system like an auction.
Thats not a choice. You are forced to wait until more at risk people get it. The question is, when it is available to you, will you take it or wait.
Also your logic relies on false assumptions. You are not likely to get seriously ill from the virus. You are still just fine, get the virus and be infected.
- I'm young & healthy and want to wait until people who are more vulnerable than me have gotten theirs.
- I wouldn't ever run .0 releases in prod. I don't have a pressing need for the vaccine and can afford to see if there are any unexpected side-effects or complications with other diseases and conditions that don't show until its given to a larger population.
- I am currently very sick and so receiving any vaccine would be dangerous for me.
- I've already gotten COVID so I should be the last person in line.
Never:
- I already know that I'm allergic to something in the vaccine.
- I have a weakened or compromised immune system and can't take most vaccines and my doctor says this is no exception.
- (I don't know if this one is true) I've already gotten COVID so I don't need the vaccine.
3) since I'm not sure about quality of vaccine available in my country. Will wait until more statistics will be gathered for it, or until other types of vaccines will become available for purchase.
Ignoring "I'm in a low risk group that won't get it for months", which is true, the vaccine available here has storage requirements meaning it's only given at a number of central locations. Travel + potential for lining up for hours == no for me.
When it's a 10/15 minute job at a local pharmacy like the normal winter flu jab then by all means I'll get it.
I already had it. No need to get vaccinated for something I've already had where the current research is indicating that immunity is either permanent or very long-lasting.
Everyone has the inalienable right to decline the vaccine for any reason, including:
- They think it will be bad for their health or public health
- They think it is some UN microchip plot
- They have a moral objection to how it was developed
- They think it is the actual “mark of the beast” from the Bible
The people who decline will be in the minority (at least visibly), and they will be bullied relentlessly by the visible majority, so to protect our rights I have to stand with them.
I am not sure I follow. I understand that people have the right to reject the vaccine, but it doesn't mean that I on principle should reject it as well.
If you don't want to take it for any reason whatsoever, fair enough. It's your right. But at least be honest and defend your choice on its own instead of hiding behind some "principle" that doesn't really exist.
The principle is simply: It is important to exercise our rights.
In a different circumstance, I would probably only get it for convenience, because I don’t really believe in messing with peoples’ immune systems without a much clearer benefit. I’m not convinced about the long-term public health benefit of flu shots either. You may disagree, which would not surprise me.
But again, that thinking is irrelevant in this case, because exercising liberty is FAR more important than “staying safe”.
You should really find the comments I made on the thread before jumping to any conclusions about whether I disagree or not.
The point I'm trying to understand is that you are basically saying "I am not getting because I don't want to and it is within my rights to not take it", which is totally fine. But I am failing to see how this is a "principled" statement. It's like saying "I will smoke a pack of cigarettes in my bathtub because I am free to do so". Claiming any "principle" stand there is based at best in circular logic.
The glaring difference between this situation and your analogy: There is no faction of “ban smoking in the bathtub” zealots getting ready to bully, intimidate, and otherwise coerce the people who want to smoke in the bathtub.
Like it or not, this is a political issue, and your choice has a political effect.
Faction or not, you still have not established a principle to justify taking the action in the first place and so far all you've got was some circular logic. That's all I've objected to in your original post.
I don’t trust the US government and would prefer to wait and see if there are side effects. Are there risks to taking a vaccine that was rapidly produced? We won’t know until we know, and so I will wait at the minimum.
So no, I won’t take it until I see how it plays out in society. And if I am persuaded by the evidence, I might take it. I’ve taken only 1 flu shot. As someone in mid-20s, I have low risk and honestly would prefer getting the flu to injecting myself with a vaccine. So I’ve elected to stop getting flu shots and take the risk. For now, I think 18 hours of suffering isn’t that bad. When I’m over the age of 40, or over 60, or at whatever age I decide, then maybe I’ll reconsider if I prefer to get sick or take a vaccine that may or may not work, given the multitude of strains of the flu.
For now, I wash my hands, wash my food, keep shoes outside, and stay home if I’m sick. Responsible self-quarantining and healthy diet are my strategies to avoid contracting or spreading sickness.
> I’ve taken only 1 flu shot. As someone in mid-20s, I have low risk and honestly would prefer getting the flu to injecting myself with a vaccine. So I’ve elected to stop getting flu shots and take the risk.
This is a very selfish take. Unless you're living your life without any human interaction, then you're contributing to the spread of the flu and soon to be covid which impacts people who are at risk.
Someone just replied saying that they "fundamentally don't care" if they spread the virus because "we'll all die of stupid things". They deleted it or a mod removed it.
My answer is "I will wait", but most honestly it would be "No, unless the vaccination rate gets to a point that is not high enough to achieve herd immunity but is large enough to be considered safe and free from unexpected side-effects". Reasons:
- It's too new - not Lindy.
- I am reasonably convinced that I had it back in February, when people were not talking about it. It was very different from every year that I got the 'flu and I experienced anosmia, which never happened before. I still take all the precautions possible, but for all intents and purposes, I consider myself already immunized.
- I'm already working from home, my social life is the one of a parent of two small kids - i.e, almost non-existent, occasionally meeting small groups of either family or close friends. My parents are on the other side of the ocean and aside from them I haven't much interaction with people that could be at-risk.
- If herd immunity is achieved with ~60-70% vaccination, why take the risk when the social butterflies and those with key activities (health care workers, teachers, people working in retail) will likely be rushed to take it?
(Okay, I try to avoid complaining about downvotes, but downvoting a comment from someone that is just providing personal opinion? You can do better than that, HN...)
Unfortunately my vaccine choice is somewhat limited by medication I'm on, and therefore I may have to wait for the right type of vaccine.
This is why it's important that everyone who can take it does take it, because there's a percentage of the population who can't, and we are only protected when the community reaches some level of heard immunity.
This is an important and under-considered factor when people are deciding about getting vaccinated. Other groups of people who can't currently get vaccinated, at least in my country, include children and pregnant women. They all deserve protection.
I wish you safety and good health until a suitable vaccine becomes available to you.
You're assuming distribution will work fairly and optimally. That's very unlikely, especially because the initial rollout will still be overseen by the Trump admin.
I find this on the internet, though usually reddit rather than here. I am forever asking folks if they mean the US, and trying to explain to them that there is... a rest of world
America is the largest (primarily) English speaking community in the world and both Reddit and YC are US companies. It's not surprising some assume the whole audience is American.
Honestly it's kind of hard to know what the audience for a site might be. If people are active during your hours and in your language, the assumption is easy to make.
Oh boy, do I hope we don't talk about the US in 2021, anymore. It's been like a slightly different, ever the same car crash you drive by, every day. For four fucking years. I am sure my dopamine receptors look like old, all dries up raisins by now. I wish we as a species could agree stop all news for year or ten. Detox and heal, form new habits like life has value and shit.
You mean the admin that encouraged people not to wear masks? The one that downplayed the virus at every opportunity? The one that held rallies without masks required, but still had people sign waivers in case they got sick?
Is it that one, or some other administration you’re thinking of?
You have a good counter. To add to "don't wear masks" though - WHO, CDC, Fauci all had poor and inaccurate guidance as well. It's like none of these experts have sane defaults when they don't know about something. Kind of hard to believe, really.
Then when they're wrong - they say "oh yeah we lied, we didn't want a run on masks for health workers". Such BS. They didn't know non-surgical/non-(k)n95 masks could be useful.
It's ok to admit when you're wrong. Better than saying you lied. Especially when there's enough distrust of government.
The US administration is culpable. But so are the experts. People need to be able to trust their experts.
Separately - I find it ridiculous we have people that are all about science, except when their agenda conflicts.
We end up with exceptions for religion. Exceptions for protests. Exceptions for filming movies. Whatever. If you have enough influence or can cause enough outrage about something you can get your way.
Nobody has the balls to take hard stances. They create these illogical plans based on who is influencing them.
Is there any official who was consistent and pragmatic with their pandemic plan?
The CDC officially recommended the use of face masks in public places on April 3.
That was forever ago and only a few weeks into the US crises(couple weeks after first lockdowns started). There absolutely was a PPE shortage at the time, and there absolutely was new information coming in about the efficacy of wearing non N95 masks. That's a lot of attribution to malice or incompetence for such a dynamic situation that shaped up in such a relatively short amount of time..
Meanwhile the current admin had their last maskless rally what, just in the past week or so?
My point is that if you're an expert that people are supposed to trust - you shouldn't make statements about things you don't know yet.
You seem to be ok glossing over that because you want to talk about the current admin when I'm not even talking about that. I agree with the culpability there.
Fauci - In March he said "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask" [1] The CDC and WHO were doing the same.
Also regarding the lie, "“We were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and public face head of the federal government’s coronavirus response, told The Street in an interview this week." [2]
You can go utilitarian if you want and say that's cool. Maybe you are ok with them lying to you because you believe them and think that was their only option. My point stands that there's enough distrust of the government. I don't believe they should do that, connect a lie to experts we are supposed to trust, and I don't believe that was their only option to prevent a shortage.
A lot of incompetence.
#1 not having enough masks in the first place, replenishing our supply
#2 talking about things they don't know and
#3 because they were incorrectly claiming cloth masks weren't useful for the public, they ended up parlaying that into a lie to try and prevent a shortage.
No, they mean the administration that still hasn't provided for adequate PPE, that turned down the offer of another 100 million doses of the 95% efficacy Pfizer vaccine, which is available now, and instead bought 300 million doses of the Astra-Zenica 62% efficacy vaccine, which does not meet the task force's minimum efficacy requirements and will not be available until summer.
seriosuly? You're arguing that what they did was OK because it was a little above minimum rather than going after the stuff that will help people in the US? They bought 300 million doses of a vaccine that is more relivant to the developing world.....
> nobody in Germany or France has been vaccinated as there are no approved vaccines
Which creates a force field around the warehouses in which it sits? Come on.
I guess I’ll revise to I know of people with substantial resources, hundreds of millions and billions at their disposal, who have been injected with something they believe to be the Pfizer vaccine.
I'm sure it's possible, but that means effectively that said person is now an undocumented trial participant. They have gotten injected with an unapproved medical product. That's a risk they've taken in order to get in early. The physician that administered it has also committed a crime that can cost them their license to practice.
There are easier ways for people in power to get vaccines. In China, the government has granted exceptional permissions to vaccinate a number of people with a vaccine that has not yet completed phase 3 trials. The list of people who qualify for that vaccine is said to be several million people long. It's much easier to get on said list in China than it is anywhere else. A number of other governments have also made exceptions for political leaders and such, treating them with non-approved medication or vaccines. For example, the sheikh of Dubai has been vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine before approval (in a very public display of faith in said vaccine, in order to promote vaccination to the population). Some countries are saying they won't bother waiting for phase 3 trials to end on some products and will make vaccines generally available based on current data. This is the case for Russia (with Sputnik-V) and Morocco (with the Sinopharm vaccine). I consider it highly likely that their heads of state are vaccinated under an exceptional authorization.
JumpCrisscross is on point here, the level of naivte in the discussion is a little much.
This is a global pandemic, trials with 30 000 patients x 5, each one of those vials worth an absolute fortune, there's a 100% chance quite a bit of it has fled into the black market and a sophisticated one at that.
And to wit - there are a lot of people being 'officially' vaccinated right now behind the scenes they're not going to tell us about.
It might be dangerous for politicians to get it early, because if asked by reporters either they have to lie, or say 'yes' and then public outcry.
Special Forces, the Secret Service and some other security personal - just a some examples are going to get it long before we plebes. Among others.
To be clear, you know multiple super rich people that were able to get a vaccine out of a -70C warehouse and keep it refrigerated while it was delivered to them?
Designed by Jan 13, manufactured and first trial by mid-Feb.
Also quote ..
>as early as July the MIT Technology Review reported that a group of 70 scientists in the orbit of Harvard and MIT, including “celebrity geneticist” George Church, were taking a totally DIY nasal-spray vaccine,
Supply chain integrity is a huge issue that normies take for granted. The surest way to lose normie friends is to point out how much faith people put in supply chains.
> the rich and powerful are easily duped into spending their money on placebos
That was frankly my line of questioning. But at least in the German case, the vials and packaging looked legitimate. And it was a reputable doctor administering it at their home who claimed to have directly procured it, though I’m sure that meant warehouse workers or something in the middle, so who knows.
If that is the case everyone involved is playing an exceptionally dangerous game and I can't imagine that this would be the norm, especially since I suspect the thieves will get greedy and screw up quickly.
> everyone involved is playing an exceptionally dangerous game
Agree. From how prevalently I watched tests get mis-allocated a few months ago, however, I’m not optimistic about enforcement. Particularly given the political implications it would have for the leaders in power, who are supposed to be doing a better job at this.
I think pre-emptive enforcement of something like this is extremely difficult without getting downright creepy and invasive. The best you can do is drop the hammer on anyone greedy and dumb enough to get caught - and I'm sure there will be some of these! But personally, I prefer vaccines where the chain of custody didn't require massive bribery and risk-taking.
Then you should contact the medical board or whatever the German equivalent is and tell them about this "reputable" doctor. They'd at least lose their license, and for good reason.
This could use some elaboration. Have you been in all three of those countries recently? Or "watched" meaning "saw people talking about online" or such? Or something in between?
I was in Germany in October and with the individual the day they took the second shot. France is a professional contact who mentioned it on the phone, as is China.
Same thing happened with tests a few months ago in Palo Alto. Billionaires with boxes of them at their homes while public stocks ran low.
Even taking all this at face value, I think the reason so many of your comments are downvoted is that they're sort of off topic for the original suggestion, which was that the government should not be trusted to handle rollout of the vaccine in a safe or fair manner. That would include giving people in positions of power or with a lot of wealth some loophole to legally be vaccinated ahead of schedule.
What you're talking about is literally a black market. The people you are hanging out with are literally criminals, who are at best injecting themselves with an unknown substance provided by criminal doctors. Most of us probably wish to see such people prosecuted.
Okay so first of all I'm almost certain no approved vaccine existed in October, the first one started rollout this week, can you back this up with a source?
Maybe you knew someone participating in a study but that's not queue skipping.
Don't get me wrong I hate billionaires but this just seems like it can't factually be correct.
It doesn't need to be approved to be used, and the results of the trial were likely known for a bit now.
It's easily conceivable that billionaires have been pushing to be 'in the loop' on the meds from the start, and will have gained access long ago to whatever was used in the most promising trials. They can take it as soon as the insider doctors flag that it's ok, likely many weeks before any public announcement, and certainly before any governmental validation.
The value of said vaccines are considerable, there's massive money involved, I wonder if the R&D institutions themselves may have been able to find a loophole to allow for it.
With the sheer number of doctors and patients involved in the trial, and vials worth possibly $100-500K on the black market ... it's bound to get out.
And frankly, who cares? A couple thousand early vaccines is basically meaningless from a public health standpoint. It might even be moral to have publicly auctioned off the first mini batch and put the money into production. It's rational because the 'willingness to pay' of some billionaires for the almost arbitrary early access to a vaccine which will soon be cheap and plentiful ... works well as a 'win win' both for the buyer, and society.
They had boxes of which vaccine? They all need to be refrigerated. Is this something you saw, heard about second hand or something you read on an open internet forum?
What you have said so far isn't consistent enough to make sense. You said boxes of the vaccine, now you are saying test kits. Test kits have been publicly available, there is no reason a company or a person couldn't buy them. That is not the same as having someone sneak a vaccine out of a -70C warehouse while keeping it refrigerated.
Then you should be aware that the federal government is merely distributing the vaccines to the states, who will determine rollouts and eligibility. Seems like you're pretty eager to find an excuse to bash the federal government, which I'd normally be all for - but in this case it's a moot point.
I know the anti-administration circle jerk is pretty strong here but the administration actually doesn't have much of any control over the roll-out plan. I have physician friends with reservations for vaccinations as early as next week. There are hundreds of people working on the roll-out plan.
Trump isn't sitting in the Oval deciding which Walgreens are getting the vaccine when.
The US has managed to get the population vaccinated previously, and adults will be in charge of the executive again in a month or so. Unfortunately, that’s too late when it comes to ordering enough of the mRNA vaccines, but it will help to have the pandemic taken seriously.
Wait, I just realized now that universal free vaccination might not be a thing in the US. I live in a developing country with 200 million people, and the dozen or so most common vaccines are free to everyone, and everyone gets it and it is managed by the government. I'm sorry, but it works. Government here has /many/ faults, but managing vaccination for 200+ million's not really one of them.
Pretty much, but it's not all covered by Uncle Sam.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is paying for the vaccine doses. It is up to individual's insurance plan to pay for administration of the vaccine. I'm not sure how that works for somebody who lacks insurance.
If you're in the US, you can look at the federal planning as well as the plans for your state most likely. From what I've seen, they look pretty reasonable.
My claim is that "government bad" and similar broad brush claims about government are completely lacking in content.
But to your point, from sending humans into space to clearing snow off the roads, "government" absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things. I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.
> Due to the slow response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city.[10] New Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."[10]
I think that two colossal failures are enough to convey a "The government responds inefficiently and generally poorly to significant humanitarian issues".
> absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things.
Maybe. Lots of private sector work is held up specifically _by_ government.
> I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.
I mean... I agree. But I never suggested we leave vaccines in the hands of chain businesses. I just pointed out that, historically, the US government botches jobs like this spectacularly. The confidence lots of these comments have in the govt efficiently distributing the vaccinations based on need, to me, is not in line with the realities of the US government wrt issues of public health and safety.
this is exactly it. based on my demographic, i'm going to be one of the last in line.
I'm not going to be trying to jump ahead in that line because i'm not an asshole and i know other people need it more than I do. but also I'm a little bit of an asshole, so i'm kind of reassured to know that hundreds of millions of people will have gotten it before me, and if there are any issues there will have been plenty of time to sort them out.
The other half of it, for the early days at least, is the fear of lining up with hundreds of people who are more likely to be high risk people. Putting yourself in higher risk.
My pharmacy does COVID testing but only if you show no symptoms. The gov health networks tell symptomatic people to be tested in hospital set up centers. But high risk people are still high risk people, whether they are showing symptoms or not.
It's worth separating the two types of 'high risk': There's 'high risk of having a severe response to COVID' and 'high risk of getting COVID'. The former (e.g. elderly) are not always the same as the latter (healthcare workers) - but there are some overlaps (e.g. care homes).
My hunch is most of the queues for vaccines will be type A e.g. the elderly. Not necessarily more likely to have COVID, but more likely to be at risk of severe symptoms if they were to get it.
idk about where you live but in Toronto 3+ million people will have to be vaccinated. It's going to be a chaotic mass experiment in the first few weeks. Which I intend to wait out.
We don’t have that in then city I live in. I just remember the lines for H1N2 that went out the door and took an hour and required you to sit there for 10min in case you had a reaction.
> I'll take it but only later in the year when it is more widely available.
Same. Just like first generation Apple hardware, even if looks as good as the M1, I'd rather have other people take the plunge before I do.
In about a year, I may. By then, we'll have 2 years worth of data from the test group - good enough!
If I perceive any serious risk, I won't. Being young and with no risk factors, I have little to gain - so the rational move for me is to leech off the group herd immunity effect.
So people, please, do the right thing and get vaccinated!! Protect your parents and your neighbors!!!
Everyone keeps saying this like it's a bad thing! I didn't leave the house for three months back in March, and it was great. The ability to work from home, a functioning Internet, and a pre-existing Brexit stockpile which came in handy unexpectedly early. I would happily be dropped to the bottom of the vaccine queue.
Oh dont get me wrong, i am also ok with quarantine and all. And if others in a more risky position than me need the vaccin they get it before me. But i was talking about the ppl that dont trust the first batches.
If it’s your turn to get the vaccin, take it or you stay in quarantine until you get it. That’s my take
You really get to see who isn't happy with their lives at home. Many for reasons I'm sympathetic to, but a comparable many who really need to reevaluate their shit.
What if every young person with no risk factors (that might be those more likely to be out and about spreading the virus) thought like that?. It sounds kind of selfish to encourage others to be your guinea pigs “so they can protect their parents”
> What if somebody has asymptomatic covid infection? He or she spreads it without intent, you can not blame them.
Yes, given what is widely publicly known about the disease, I can very easily blame people who are involved engaging in high-spread-risk behavior despite being a-(or, more likely if they are actually spreading it, pre-)symptomatic and who are thereby spreading the virus they don’t know they have.
Not who you're replying to, but not for ignorance.
On the other hand, if someone knows they've been exposed and still behave carelessly, I'm absolutely fine with charging people with attempted murder, endangering the public health, or something similar.
I completely agree if you test positive and don't follow the isolation period then that's a problem. However op seems to be saying that if you go shopping (could be classed as high risk?), don't know you have the virus, and pass it on then that's a problem too?
What's the difference between passing this on unintentionally and passing any other virus or disease unintentionally?
> Would you be comfortable convicting those people with attempted murder?
No, attempted murder requires specific intent. For the most egregious conduct when they know they are at particularly high risk of being a spreader, even without intent, if someone actually dies, it might arguably be close to depraved-indifference rather than intent-to-kill murder, but more generally negligent homicide if they actually kill people and reckless endangerment, otherwise, would be closer selections from the generically-common American set of crimes. But I’m not arguing they should be criminally liable; saying that an act is not beyond moral blame is not the same that it technically fits — or, even if it does, should necessarily be prosecuted as — a crime.
I was alluding to legal situation and term of Negligent homicide/Involuntary manslaughter; it is defined as "the killing of another person without the intent to kill, but where the person's death occurs as a result of the negligent or reckless actions of the defendant."
In the situation of Covid it would be something like infecting another person without the intent to infect, but where the person's health might be endangered as a result of the negligent or reckless actions of the defendant (the one who spread the virus).
How does this differ from any other communicable disease with a non-zero mortality that someone might spread either unknowingly or negligently? E.g. influenza just to name one.
Of course you can blame them, given what has publicly been known about the virus for months.
This virus has been primarily spread by people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic, particularly indoors and maskless.
At this point, if you're indoors and maskless with anyone outside your family or "pod" you are completely culpable if you spread the disease. Probably not legally, but morally.
So people that are young that have next to no risk from covid should take a highly experimental vaccine with no longitudinal analysis. Not so great risk analysis there.
While noble to give to the more acutely affected people first, I think distribution at random makes more sense since that decreases the ability of the virus to grow. I'll let the epidemiologists be my guide however.
I believe the theory is, if the virus kills 85-year-old care home residents at 300x the rate it kills healthy under-30s, one dose given to the former is worth 300 doses given to the latter.
Depends on your goal. It the goal is to prevent deaths and reduce hospital occupancy then it make sense to give it to those most likely to die or to be hospitalized. If it spreads asymptomaticly that's not a big deal.
What does that have to do with the population distribution and the fact that most of the land and people are in the northern hemisphere (and therefore, objectively not in spring)?
> ”then people who are super social (or stupid + spreading the plague)”
Many such people will have antibodies already. As do I. I’ll get the vaccine if it becomes a requirement to travel or whatever, but I see no need for it in the short term if you’re low risk and already had Covid.
How long IgM and IgG antibodies remain detectable following infection is not known.
...
it remains uncertain to what degree and for how long individuals with antibodies (neutralizing or total) are protected against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 or what concentration of antibodies may be needed to provide such protection.
> "Having antibodies does not guarantee immunity."
Sure, but it seems to have worked so far. And if having natural antibodies doesn't give long-term immunity, then will vaccine-induced antibodies? We don't know.
> "How long IgM and IgG antibodies remain detectable following infection is not known."
Having detectable antibodies is not the same thing as immunity.
There's no evidence that getting the vaccine doesn't mean you can't still be infected and spread it to others (you just don't get sick). So giving it to super social/stupid people up front may not help, because they can still spread it and probably think it's no big deal anymore because they're vaccinated.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but don't the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines not grant sterilizing immunity, aka you can still be a carrier if you're immunized?
As far as I can tell this is currently unknown, it has not been studied.
My complete layman understanding would be that it should at least somewhat prevent the spreading because replication has to be limited if a vaccine works and replication is also an important part of giving the disease to others? If less cells are infected you can't cough out the virus as much? But the exact timeline is important here, obviously. Again, complete layman, I know basically nothing about this.
I don't understand this statement. Are you suggesting that public employees in these jurisdictions can use their influence to grant them favourable circumstances?
My understanding was always that public employees everywhere in the United States, especially the traditionally blue places, are impervious to corruption.
When has there ever been a record in history where a public employee in CA was found to be corrupt?
If the media are to be believed, these people are humble, simple people, without any nefarious bones in their bodies.
This is just the beginning. There will be plenty of such public employee unions that will be jockeying for access over private citizens. And these unions spend huge amounts of money on their preferred candidates in elections to the State Legislatures, among other governments.
Question—have there historically been any comparable vaccines whose problems have become apparent long after the shot (> 6 months) while having seemed fine before that?
Comparable, I don't know. But during the swine flue influenza, the Swedish government rolled out a large vaccination campaign, encouraging everyone to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, it turned out that children in a certain age could get chronic narcolepsy from the vaccine Pandemrix. About 230 children have been reported suspected to get this side effect from the vaccine.
Pandemrix caused many cases of narcolepsia not only in Sweden, but in Finland too. (And other countries, but in lesser numbers)
Apparently there are two types of narcolepsia, type 1 is an autoimmune reaction against a hormone which regulates wakefulness and sleep. Pandemrix caused the type 1 in some people.
The whole situation is quite well known in Sweden and Finland. Over the years, there have been news articles and documentaries on TV, and so on. It is very sad to see young children injured for life because of a vaccine which was supposed to be safe.
The majority of the cases got symptoms in a few months, but some after 1.5 years.
To crown this whole debacle, internal GSK documents with signals of safety concerns were ignored (Pandemrix adverse effects were compared to an almost identical vaccine called Arepanrix). [1]
I took the Pandemrix back in the days. I'm definitely not an "anti-vaxxer", but sorry, I won't be the first in line for another rushed pandemia vaccine.
...in the USA. And actually, EMA has similar information on their pages on the whole Europe level. But that is beside the point.
The point is not the H1N1 vaccines used in the USA in general, the point is not Arenaprix, Focetria or even Pandemrix used on populations of non-Finnish ancestry, and the point is not the use of adjuvants in general.
The point is the problem which GSK's Pandemrix used specifically in Sweden and Finland created.
If you read that page, it refers to a paper from 2018. If you look closely, 4 authors received money from GSK, but it is not relevant. The relevant parts are that the paper:
1. Actually found increased rates in Sweden, "Other than elevated narcolepsy IRs in the period after vaccination campaigns in Sweden, we did not find..."
2. Did not examine Finland at all.
The most impacted country was skipped since it was the other signalling country. This may seem weird, but the purpose was to establish whether Pandemrix and/or other H1N1 vaccinations were generally safe elsewhere.
And, so, yes. There is no conspiracy, in general, H1N1 vaccinations are safe, for most people.
However, let us now go to the specifics.
There were and are unfortunate Finnish and Swedish children, who have HLA DQB1*06:02 and who, together with the proteins present in GSK's Pandemrix, possibly in combination with exposure to A(H1N1), developed narcolepsy because their orexin-producing cells in the hypothalamus were somehow damaged through an autoimmune response.
So, interesting fact: use of Pandemrix increased narcolepsy rates in Finland and Sweden. This connection was due to the genetic specifics of Finns and the contents of the vaccine itself.
My point, which I want to re-iterate, is this: these kinds of connections cannot be seen with some months of clinical testing, especially not when there is an immense pressure to succeed. Any company getting problems with their vaccine would see their stock price collapse.
I saw and remember what happened the last time. Now I want to see more testing before I commit.
Agreed. "The Pandemrix experience" is fresh enough in people's mind here that it surely will decrease willingness to be vaccinated against Covid. I will not rush to get it, but if for example I could no longer work from home, I would get it then.
Oh wow I see, thanks for the pointer! Looking it up now, it seems the increased risk was 1 in 18400, or 0.005%. [1] So I guess it was rare enough that it could easily not have shown up during trials either.
One key point in my question that I'm stuck on, though, if you happen to know the answer: how long did the effects take to become apparent in those children? Were they immediate or did they show up long after vaccination? (I'm mainly wondering how long people should expect to wait before side effects become apparent.)
I don't know but from what I recall at the time, it became news after most people were already vaccinated. It was long enough that it was too late to act on it in a real sense.
"High risk" for a vaccine is still a lower risk than that of catching/suffering/dieing from covid. It is a numbers game, a balance between risks. It isn't a magic pill to stop evil in its tracks.
I completely agree -- but what I'd like to understand is what those risks are from the vaccine. In Canada, the risk from COVID is high, but not as high as that in the US.
The executive summary of the FDA report[1] on the vaccine lists observed side effects in the clinical trial population as well as their incidence rates. Briefly, it is comparable to a normal flu shot.
Derek Lowe, who's worked as a chemist doing drug discovery for 30 years (for whatever that experience is worth to you), wrote an article[2] talking about that report and gives his take on the question of safety.
He's also written an article[3] about how it's likely people will wrongly attribute things that would have happened anyway to having taken the vaccine.
For a techie analogy: Have you ever been roped into doing some computer support for a friend or family member? Fixing a printer, installing a driver, cleaning malware, etc.? Have you ever experienced someone you helped coming back to you the next week blaming you for some new issue that's cropped up because "It must have been you when you worked on it last week!", even though it's because they went to some scummy website or similar? The vaccine rollout is going to be that scenario times a billion.
People who don't realize that they are alive today because their parents trusted doctors and took the vaccines. These things sort themselves out, over time :)
If you voted YES and were able to choose among the available (Western) vaccines, BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna or Oxford/AstraZeneca, which one would you take? Does it matter for you?
“ Russia approved the vaccine after trying it on several dozen subjects in a non-blind study and ahead of Phase 3 trials, which are key to establish its safety and efficacy, drawing skepticism from the international community and accusations it could have jumped the gun for political gains.”
It's not clear what you are quoting, but there are vaccines besides the russian one. For example there is also the Chinese CoronaVac.
I think there are completely reasonable reasons for people to consider these vaccines as well. Some have larger phase III trials, and some are tested in different demographics. for example, Arabs might be more comfortable with trials that were run with predominantly arab participants.
Younger people are much less likely to take the vaccine than are older people. People under 45 years old are evenly split between wanting the vaccine and not wanting it. Black respondents are also much less likely to report willingness to the vaccine, perhaps reflecting historic distrust of the medical system.
"EVENTUALLY" should be an option. I'm low risk and was full time remote even before this. Better to let high risk, health care and service industry people have first go at the vaccine.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 515 ms ] threadEvidence that no one reads the FAQ! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
--
What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
What would be the catastrophic consequences of this guideline if HN started a TV channel with news that would "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"?
Turns out you could confirm this suspicion with a poll.
After seeing my comment that just had '1' in it, I figured it out.
However, this will likely be taken care of for me, because I'm 1) not an essential healthcare worker, 2) not a senior citizen and 3) live in a large urban area. Those people will get the vaccine first, and in mid-june (or later) based on the fallout of the vaccine if things seem normal I'll get it.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/12/03/intent-to-get...
I'm 31 but Type 1 diabetic so I'll be interested to see how early I can get it. The main risk factor for COVID seems to be Type 2, but with how much Type 1 can ruin just about every aspect of your health, I wonder if I'll be able to get in line sooner. If I can, I will.
However, a vaccine that's been rushed through gives me pause. To be honest, I'm mostly worried about cognitive and cardiovascular side effects. I've distanced thus far and remain covid free even though I've been in NYC the whole time. It'd be stupid to throw all that away because I got side effects from the vaccine.
Unfortunately, I think the pledge of past presidents to be "vaccinated on tv" is poorly thought out, largely because it will basically just sow conspiracies that they "just had saline injections to influence the masses".
They want to keep the trial running as long as possible to get longer-term data (understandable) but it is also potentially unethical to not tell someone if they got a placebo if they are at-risk and a known-good vaccine is otherwise available. I'm in the UK where they are already vaccinating thousands of people everyday with the Pfizer one, so I expect them to figure out the unblinding details very shortly.
FWIW, I usually get no side effects with a flu shot but others get more so I'm sure it varies person to person.
To me it doesn’t look like they have a lot of data yet.
Don’t these studies typically need to go for much longer?
The Pfizer study:
43,448 patients ages 16 and up.
19,000 vaccinated patients
170 people caught the Coronavirus
Of the sick people:
- 162 received a placebo
- 8 received the vaccine
1. You normally don't expose so many people to an untested medicine, so trials tend to be smaller than this. In this case there was no shortage of volunteers, and the larger the trial the faster it can reach a certain level of confidence in a result.
2. Normally, with vaccines, you need to wait a very long time for enough people to contract the disease and measure how effective it actually is. In this case, there are so many people infected in the general population, that reaching the required number of participants infected happened much faster than usual. In fact, when the trial was planned in the spring, it was expected that it wouldn't reach its required 164 infected participants until sometime in late summer 2021. The reason this happened so quick is that the number of infections in the general population exploded, and so the required data was available much earlier.
What are the next steps and goals?
White House chief of staff told FDA chief vaccine must be authorized Friday or he needs to resign
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/11/politics/white-house-fda-chie...
- The rushed nature of the vaccines. “Fastest approved vaccine” is not re-assuring if you don’t understand what trade was made for that accelerated timeline.
- “I’ll just stay isolated until it dies off”
- “I don’t trust western medicine”
- “I don’t trust the FDA or big pharma”
- “I don’t care if I get covid . People at risk can take the vaccine”
Don’t forget how many people don’t even take the flu shot.
That's a funny comparison from a UK perspective where the flu shot isn't even offered to the general population (only the elderly, vulnerable or those whose work in healthcare or similar). I'd say there is much more reason to take the COVID vaccine than the flu shot.
Most companies offer the flu jab to their employees for free, and otherwise it's like a tenner to save yourself the risk of 2/3 days of feeling horrible.
That said, I don’t get the flu every year (iirc, I’ve had it twice in the past 20 years).
The specifics of the Moderna vaccine took 2 days once they had the genome of the virus. But there was an awful lot of work done before then.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7492076/moderna-coronavirus-vacci...
From there, the process of developing the vaccine is training the body to fight blobs that function like COVID does.
The first shot introduces some COVID-shaped blobs, and your body develops some antibody factories to fight them, and keeps some around just in case the scary blobs come back.
The second shot introduces some more blobs, and your body reacts by producing even more antibody factories. “Trick me twice, shame on me”, in nature.
The hard work was building the database. Which was only possible because of the genome project and cell project.
- "These are the first mRNA vaccines ever released. We don't yet know the long term effects."
It ignores all of the hard work over literal decades that has gone into the work of developing mRNA-based medicine (gRPC and protobufs), which was developed literally for situations like Covid-19 (polyglot services communicating over network interfaces).
Yes, mRNA is basically magic from a distance. So is all of modern technology. But it’s built on and hardened by iterative experiments, not conjured from thin air.
1. This is an mRNA vaccine and is the first of it's kind to be widely offered. This appears to be different than the rest of the vaccines out there for other illnesses.
2. There isn't a perceived benefit for many people: the vast majority of people won't get sick or be impacted in any way.
3. It apparently doesn't stop people from getting or becoming transmissions vectors. So, if you get the vaccine and it makes you less sick, then you may take "riskier" actions than if you were to get it and actually have some symptoms. (IOW, why take it?)
4. Some people can't take it due to allergy concerns?
This is just what I've found in my online research.
I am not sure if asymptomatic transmission has been confirmed or not. I kept hearing that if you didn't have symptoms then you couldn't transfer it, but given the uptick in cases, it wouldn't seem like that is the case.
It's been confirmed, from early experience e.g. with the Diamond Princess and USS Theodore Roosevelt. It seems to be rare.
But paucisymptomatic transmission -- transmission before symptoms have manifested in people who will eventually be symptomatic -- is much less rare. So just quarantining people with symptoms doesn't work.
The definition you give is for presymptomatic not paucisymptomatic (the latter is basically having trivial/mild symptoms that don’t raise complaints), but transmission in both cases is a significant risk, much more so than true asymptomatic transmission.
From what I've seen this is not established at all. They are careful to say that they don't have conclusive proof that the people who were in their study were not ever contagious - but that doesn't mean that they were contagious either.
They have simply called out that further studies will be needed before we can say whether and to what degree.
Doesn't that concern ironically mean we should take the Russian one?
Bill Gates would only pollute the Moderna one, if those theories factored in geopolitics at all.
There's good reason to ignore the nutjobs and focus on the rational opposition, steel-manning our foe so to speak. It makes our thinking more clear and our arguments stronger.
Even bothering to oppose the insane elements by definition does not convince anyone of anything, since no sane person on either side agrees with the insanity. All it does is momentarily make us feel superior, but it's a fleeting and counterproductive endeavour.
On the other hand, people are of course free to have a healthy scepticism about a new-form of vaccine, and I will happily respect that.
It is on the same level of the viewpoint that the vaccine is unicorn blood.
(I also know someone else under 45 who got it, and was symptomatic.)
There have been more than a few cases with people losing taste/smell, heart and lung damage that may be permanent, and other nasty effects that we are still learning about, truly heartbreaking stuff when it is young people who were training for or attempting to become high performance athletes their entire lives just to have it stripped away because of this virus.
2. It's really curious to see people saying, on the one hand, that they're uncertain about a vaccine because of some unexpected long-term impacts, and then saying on the other hand that they're unconcerned about unexpected long-term impacts from a brand new and as-yet-poorly-understood disease. There are still a lot of question marks about covid-19 and researchers are still discovering far more "quiet" impacts in apparently healthy individuals, including blood clots and pericarditis.
2a. Overall though I'm in favor of anybody avoiding this vaccine that wishes to. The disease would continue to disproportionately affect the populations of people who believe it's a hoax, or believe it's not a serious health risk, or believe it's a conspiracy, or believe the vaccine is a conspiracy, or believe that vaccines in general are conspiracies -- and we could do with fewer of those people.
3. As two other people have already pointed out, the researchers have only been cautious about not stating something that they don't know to be factual. It's funny: when researchers are cautious, people read too much into it and draw bad conclusions, and that leads to the kinds of research press releases that other people then criticize for making statements unsupported by evidence. Researchers have repeatedly stated in various media that there's no reason for them to expect people to be infectious after taking the vaccine, they merely haven't tested for this specifically.
4. The people they're talking about here are the sort that need to carry an epi-pen with them wherever they go. If you are one of those people, then yes, at this time there's an uncertain amount of risk associated with these vaccines. The situation is still developing and there should be better information available as the vaccines are distributed.
Your post is insightful, but it could really do without the inflammatory death-wishing in 2a.
Multiple social issues throughout 2020 have together completely exhausted my usual compassion and optimism towards people. 300,000 Americans and 1.6 million people worldwide are dead but many millions more still don't see this as a public health emergency. Moreover, beleaguered medical workers have been harassed everywhere online and fist fights and other assaults have been reported across the country that were started by wearing a mask. And then there's the cyclopsian intersection in the venn diagram of "people who are aggressively anti-mask" and "people who are unconcerned with or even violently opposed to the health and safety of anybody outside their tribe".
From an entirely pragmatic standpoint, the freedom to choose one's own destiny is arguably the most important human right. All of the information necessary to protect yourself and those around you from this disease is now widely available. Most people who wish to minimize their risk of exposure can do so, with the notable exception of the many medical workers who have been, not asked, but demanded, to put themselves at risk in the service of people who believe those same medical workers are part of some vast conspiracy.
So, I'm asking honestly here, to you or whoever else: convince me to care about the plight of terrible people.
In short, you should not be injecting things into your system unless you really need them.
what exactly would you call phase 3 trials for the various vaccines that were done on thousands/tens of thousands of people?
As much as you trust each of the (5?) vaccines, you yourself can not know for certainty.. there is some doubt. You may judge that that uncertainty and risk is minimal and well worth taking the vaccine, another completely rational person may decide that it is not worth the risk.
The point of my post was that there is real and legitimate risk, be it ever so small. Anyone who pretends there is zero risk to the vaccine is misrepresenting the truth and doing a disservice in the effort of persuading rational adults that vaccine delivery is being lead in an honest and forthright way.
i find this "better the devil you know" mindset really weird when the "devil you know" is an extremely infectious virus that has killed _three hundred thousand_ americans (not to mention more worldwide), and thousands more by the day.
these hypothetical vaccine side effects that have not come up during any of the trials that have been going on for _months_, across thousands and thousands of participants, would have to be pretty insanely bad in order to outweigh the negatives of millions more people contracting the actual virus.
But you have to acknowledge that there are huge incentives for the drug manufacturers to have a successful test and a healthy scepticism until they have been truly independently verified isn't unwarranted.
Also a pure, as tested, vaccine doesn't magically appear for your inoculation, there is manufacturing, and delivery, and other potential contamination points along the way. It means what goes into your system isn't necessarily what has shown to be safe; not a huge risk, but a risk nonetheless.
It would have made me feel better if you had started out your reply by saying.. "yes there are risks to this vaccine, but..". That way I would know we're working from the same starting point and I could trust that your views are calm and considered, and that you accept the reality that there is indeed risk to taking a foreign substance into your bloodstream.
Many of us know people who have had Covid, and it wasn't a very big deal. Even fat old Donald Trump shrugged it off in a few days; granted he had the best medical care possible. That's not to diminish the loss of loved ones that have surely been taken by Covid. But it can make one question the statistical importance of Covid in the larger scheme of things.
Again, i'm not really arguing with your points, just that they need to be presented with honesty, we shouldn't put a religious halo around vaccines; we should be clear about the risks too.
Regardless, for some rich people those treatments _are_ available. And that may well lead them to the completely rational choice of avoiding the risks associated with a vaccine.
Everyone is different, and can arrive at different decisions completely rationally.
The vaccines have been tested in 30-40,000 people each. The typical serious side effects for vaccines are something like 1 in a million or 1 in a few hundred thousand. Even if the vaccine had an usually high level of side effects, odds are it's still far, far less harmfull than contracting the actual disease.
And again, my main point is that we should be honest about the risks and not pretend they're zero.
I'm not in the risk group, and I would take the vaccine right now if it was offered to me. Even in the worst case the potential risks are below what a real COVID-19 infection would entail.
I'm not trying to talk you personally out of getting the vaccine, I don't think it will turn you into a zombie or some foolishness. I'm just asking you to understand that it is a rational decision for some people to arrive at a different answer.
And the risk is actually almost entirely age-dependent, the other risk factors weren't that significant in studies.
But that says absolutely zero about any single individual. Each individual, regardless of age group, can have more or less susceptibility than their age group. It is an _individual's_ health and other risk factors that decide the outcome for that individual -- not their membership in an age category. Therefore, each individual must decide their own risk tolerance and remediation plan.
0-19 years: 0.00003
20-49 years: 0.0002
50-69 years: 0.005
70+ years: 0.054
So only age 50+ have at least 0.5% chance to die from COVID-19. These numbers also include everyone in that age range, e.g. the obese, diabetic, immunocompromised. If you know you are healthy, your odds are better. As a healthy 27 year old and something of a fitness fanatic, my odds appear to be 99.98% of surviving at minimum. Due to the reasons I just mentioned, in addition to being on the younger end of the 20-49 age range, my odds are actually quite a bit better than 99.98%, although I don't know the exact number. I'll roll those dice over a vaccine that has been rushed, and will get the vaccine some years in the future if no problems emerge.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
But – excuse me for putting this bluntly – it is obviously very selfish. If everybody calculated their risk like you do, the result would be that the pandemic drags on for a few years, a lot of preventable deaths happen + probably a terrible economic downturn. You have the choice to sacrifice a little bit (meaning a tiny chance of vaccine complications) of your own health for the greater good – or you can slack of others doing it for you. Because that's what's going to happen, most people voting "yes" on this thread are making the same calculation you are but deciding to sacrifice a little bit of their own health.
Also there is an aspect of if you are young and healthy your risk of serious effects from covid is low. Even if your risk of problems from the vaccine is low, if your risk of serious effects from the disease that the vaccine treats is also very low then why bother taking any action.
Vaccinated people can spread the virus on a (there's a better term for this) surface level, which is why it's still important for them to wear masks and wash hands.
Hypothetical example of how it can spread: an infected person sneezes on a vaccinated person right in the face. That vaccinated person then rubs his face all over an non-vaccinated person. Really high chance the non-vaccinated person is infected.
I also want to emphasize that a vaccinated person that came in contact with the corona virus is far less contagious than an asymptomatic person.
i think you are looking for "disease vectoring"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_(epidemiology)
"The authors observed that neither symptoms nor blood investigations were predictive of organ impairment.
“Causality of the relationship between organ impairment and infection cannot be deduced, but may be addressed by longitudinal follow-up of individuals with organ impairment,” the authors said."
The paper took 201 people who self-reported as long Covid sufferers, and found that 66% of them had something that could be characterized as "organ impairment" when a whole-body MRI scan was conducted. It's not at all clear that this would differ significantly from any random group of people whom you stick in a whole-body MRI scan (let alone a group of people who had recently recovered from any other viral illness). Which is why we don't do them.
Thus far, ~all such "long Covid" research has been anecdotal and/or uncontrolled. The evidence quality is quite poor.
There are vaccines that cause better immune response than the disease it protects against.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
"There was a low repositive rate in recovered COVID-19 patients in Wuhan. Results of virus culturing and contract tracing found no evidence that repositive cases in recovered COVID-19 patients were infectious, which is consistent with evidence from other sources."
Same paper also states that asymptomatic cases are much less likely to be infectious.
There's probably been a few reinfections, and some decent documentation of a couple. If you repeat an experiment millions of times on diverse individuals, you can expect some variation.
So reinfection actually is possible.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
Getting it early and getting immunity works great for fairly mild things like chicken pox, which is less likely to leave permanent/long term damage. But not for something where so many people report that they've still never fully recovered from even months later.
My wife didn’t get off so “easy”, she coughed for about five months straight until one day she just finally stopped coughing.
- have very likely immunity or at least a much better response the next time
- despite having been exposed to it the first time having had super mild symptoms so I don’t need protection from a non threat
- coronaviruses mutate a lot slower and people who had sars-cov-1 still had a t-cell immunity even 10 years after their infection and there is little reason to believe that sars-cov-2 couldn’t be similar
Given that I won’t be offered the vaccine for a long time I luckily don’t have to decide and know that I won’t have it at least until enough production testing was done.
It might be that weaker cases give less immunity. If you were exposed to smaller amounts of the virus in the first case.
Tetanus is the most well-known example here. That's why it makes sense to vaccinate you even after potential exposure.
It's not a good example of something to which people develop natural immunity, because if you are infected, you'll probably die, and even if not, suffer life-changing injury.
Edit, here ya go: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-covid-survivors-immun...
> Worldwide, there have been less than 30 cases of known re-infection among COVID-19 survivors, although more are suspected. Experts said the numbers would likely be much higher if most people had not developed immunity.
> "I think that tells us that there's some level of immunity after you've recovered from the primary infection," Wherry said. "We don't know how durable that is."
It's hard to read even this article as anything but "It seems there is a high level of immunity, but we don't know for sure, so let's be careful."
I don't know any reason to say otherwise, except if you are afraid people will get infected voluntarily for immunization.
It's both sad and funny to me that this is the reaction people are having.
Now I agree the process was quicker than usual, that it brings up a lot of questions. But it's the studies we should question, the efficiency, the long term effects. The way it's sold and "advertised" is just equally as dramatic as the disease it's trying to stop, in my opinion.
It varies by region but where I'm from, back in April-ish, we were sold: "just two weeks of lockdowns and the virus will die out! everything will be back to normal!". So we did. Businesses shut down, transit basically stopped running, our downtown core was a wasteland. Everyone parroted "stay safe, stay home" back and forth at each other and sat at home for a few weeks. It sucked, everyone had a bad time, lots of busineses had to go out of business, but we all were told it was for the greater good and it'll be worth it. And... it didn't do shit.
Now here we are again. Odds on, in a few months, it'll be either "turns out this vaccine doesn't protect you as well as we thought", or "turns out it only protects you for six months", or "turns out the virus mutated so the vaccine isn't effective at all anymore"? In exchange for, what, testing not only a new vaccine, but a whole new method of vaccination on yourself? Whether that's worth it to you or not is a personal choice, but "it will literally save lives and end [the disease]" is firmly TBD.
And also, can you back your claims that the spring lockdowns "didn't do shit"? That's not at all what the numbers show.
- it was just only the beginning of a massive sh*tstorm, not just "2 weeks of lockdown and we'll be ok"
- the lockdown in April was to mitigate as much as possible the first wave
- a second wave would almost definitely arrive in the winter (hello! it's here! we're in lockdown again, pretty much as planned)
- nothing will be back to normal before we get the vaccine, and even then, it would take months if not years for it to be a thing of the past, and that until then we'd have to do our best to follow the guidelines.
You can't compare scientific proof that something works vs. a government decision taken to "mitigate things".
The spring lockdown helped free beds in hospital and ultimately it saved thousands if not millions of lives worldwide. Period. This is UNDENIABLE.
Also, maybe if some people weren't so doubtful that these decisions were for their own good and stopped throwing tantrums about their "fundamental right to breathe air", we wouldn't have had a second wave at all. Maybe.
If it was a rushed vaccine to prevent you from becoming a zombie you wouldn't need to sell it.
If it was a vaccine for the common cold you would need to sell it.
One of the reasons the vaccine for COVID-19 was produced so quickly is not because of some sort of conspiracy, like they had the antidote all along or something. It's just that when there's a real buck to make, it becomes a race between these big pockets companies.
That's one side of it and I don't know enough to cover every aspect of it. Also, it's just my opinion of course and how I see this.
Edit: I'm doubtful about a zombie vaccine being given for free. Most likely in a Walking Dead type scenario, where the economy would completely go down, there wouldn't be any financial incentive to keep the searches going, and no money to back up the researches either. So we'd be scr*wed I think. :o)
If I were in an at risk group I might have a different perspective, but as it stands I’m happy to wait and see how it goes. If I end up never having to take it, even better.
Yeah, you're an anti-vaxxer.
An anti-vaxxer is someone who rejects vaccines in general. I’m rejecting a few specific vaccines on a very rational basis. I’ll wait for you to jump so that I can judge for myself whether I’d like to proceed or not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
When I'm afforded the option to get the vaccine, I'll make an assessment of risks based upon data we have at that time vs the risks of contracting COVID.
If I had to make that decision today, I'd take the vaccine. But by the time I'll likely be able to get it in February or so, we'll have millions more data points that I'll be able to consider.
Q: Does all medicine go through a rigorous efficacy testing that is certified by the FDA?
A: Yes.
Q: Do vaccines?
A: No.
Q: Why?
A: It would be unethical.
This is surprising to people who don't know how vaccines are made.
edit: removed hyperbole
It's not been done once by modern western medicine because it would be unethical by modern medical practices to intentionally infect a person.
If you give 40,000 people a random mix of placebo and vaccines and then monitor whether or not they contract the target disease, you get an indication of efficacy by comparing the vaccinated group to the placebo group.
Please explain how would your proposal be any more valid than a proper controlled study where you do the treatment on portion of your participants and wait how it works out for them.
It's never been done that I have seen.
Edit: removed hyperbole
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&biw=2326&...
Scientific method require each person be equally exposed to the virus under strict lab conditions.
Keep in mind that even under strict lab conditions your results would never be 100% certain.
There have even been studies where the vaccine that you get in the control arm of the study is the vaccine against Meningitis and then after a year or two they do give you what ever vaccine you had not received yet. (Sorry, forgot against which disease the vaccine under test was protecting.)
And of course there is double blind studies where you get three injections, one of which is saline, two are active. They are given a few weeks apart, you don't know the order and they check antibody level in the blood every week.
Arguably, releasing your subjects into an environment full of live virus, such as the United States, is a kind of challenge study, which rapidly delivers efficacy data. This is why approval could happen so much faster than usual for these vaccines.
It likely would have been good to do challenge trials with the vaccine groups (to speed up the testing). It would of course not be nice to do it with the placebo group.
But you are plucking a single evidentiary standard out of some dark place and then asserting that it is the only useful one. Of course it is not, and Phase 3 vaccine trials are well designed to provide clear evidence of effectiveness. Go look up the Pfizer result going around on the memes if you don't believe that.
I think that this vaccine is a choice, and once it's readily available it is still a choice. If you choose not to get it, you are accepting the possibility that you might get COVID and die. Once the vaccine becomes available to my age group and health demographic, the people that actually need it will have been given the option to make their choice as well.
At risk populations have the same choices I have. I will choose to wait because I am not at risk. The risk level is obviously a factor that should play a part in making an individual's choice.
Now, for the people that _cannot_ get the vaccine for whatever reason, ultimately my decision is definitely more selfish, in that I am taking precautions in favor of my own safety as opposed to theirs. I guess I don't think this is unreasonable though?
> I think that this vaccine is a choice, and once it's readily available it is still a choice. If you choose not to get it, you are accepting the possibility that you might get COVID and die.
Generally, a whole lot of the reasons why we take vaccines is to provide collective protection. E.g. it's not critical that I be vaccinated for pertussis because of my own risk of whooping cough.
> But we've bounded the risk to be much, much less than COVID in almost all populations.
Are you sure? And by sure I mean, there is enough data to prove this statement to be true? How?
> Generally, a whole lot of the reasons why we take vaccines is to provide collective protection.
This makes, sense, but is "collective protection" a right now thing? Or is collective protection the goal of a vaccination program over the course of 5-10 years? If the latter is true, is the stance of "I will wait 1-2 years until there is actual data" even at odds with this idea?
Reasonably sure. Even looking at the low death rate 25-34 population, deaths have been about 4 per 100,000 population with only 15% infected so far; a natural trek to herd immunity will presumably kill 6-12 more per 100k. There will be even greater amounts of morbidity and hospitalization, too, than outright death.
Compare to ~22000 dosed in trials; two of the vaccinated died from causes that don't look related to the vaccine, and four of the placebo group died. This mostly lets us exclude a high death rate from the vaccine. Several in the placebo group ended up hospitalized from severe COVID; none in the vaccine group ended up hospitalized from COVID or vaccine related side effects.
Indeed, the entire judgment call made in emergency use authorization is exactly that: the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
> This makes, sense, but is "collective protection" a right now thing? Or is collective protection the goal of a vaccination program over the course of 5-10 years?
It's a "right now" thing. We can get all the way there in 6 months, and get significant benefit in 3 months. To be clear, the former doesn't mean "cases knocked down to zero", but instead infections knocked down by >95%.
How frequently are vaccine side effects measured 1-3 years out? How frequently do vaccines present side effects on the 1-3 year timeframe?
> Indeed, the entire judgment call made in emergency use authorization is exactly that: the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
Had that judgement call not been made in one of the least competent governments in US history, I think it might carry more weight, no?
> the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.
I would challenge this statement in that I don't believe it possible to fully understand the risks yet. Is 22000 over ~three months the normal amount of time a vaccine trial runs (I am asking somewhat rhetorically, in that we've heard time and time again that this is not the case)
Basically never: negative effects are overwhelmingly weighted to close to administration. This could, of course, always be the first vaccine to really do this. Indeed, most childhood vaccine trials have been about a year long.
Much more interesting / troublesome is what immunogenicity is at 1 years / 3 years / 5 years. That's why vaccines have failed at the end of their trials: efficacy isn't durable enough, not that too many people get side effects 2.5 years in.
There's a fair chance we'll find that these vaccines don't offer great long term protection. So far protection seems to be holding up OK... But that's next year's problem.
> Had that judgement call not been made in one of the least competent governments in US history, I think it might carry more weight, no?
We have plenty of other competent regulators making the same choice, and the review process followed seems reasonable. The pressure from the top to speed it up further is yucky, I admit.
> I would challenge this statement in that I don't believe it possible to fully understand the risks yet.
Well, sure. We can't know exactly the probability that it will turn us all into vampires a year from now. We can't exactly know the risks from letting COVID-19 doing its thing unimpeded, either. But the former risk looks pretty small and the latter risk looks pretty big, and it's not like we've not studied both pretty extensively.
Really? We've got a lot more data on COVID than we do on the vaccines.
Sure, but we don't know much about long-term morbidity tied to COVID infection, or exactly how many people it will get in the end. Even if I've got it all wrong--- the vaccine is riskier than our current data implies in the age 24-30 group, and fewer people from age 24-30 will get it because things burnt themselves out earlier-- what about the risks of long-term morbidity from COVID-19 infection in this group? Even that alone dwarfs likely vaccine risks. A whole lot of people are getting hospitalized, and even only 5% of them ending up with some degree of long term disability is daunting.
There's big error bars all around, but they largely don't overlap, and COVID has profound downside risks.
I would say the same about the vaccines though. It seems like a lose/lose but one of which has a much greater sample.
A better approach to the safety of the vaccine is to ask whether it's safer to take it or to abstain, and who bears the risk in each case. I accept that the numbers won't be the same for everyone: they depend on age, sex, gregariousness, medical condition, culture, job, and perhaps (I don't know) ethnicity. However, people I know who've had Covid-19 say it's brutal: even if it doesn't kill you, it can give you a really rough time. I know of four friends of friends who've died of it, including one in his twenties. And let's not forget long Covid, which can strike at any age. Set against that the clinical trials that the vaccine has undergone, with trials halted if even one person became seriously ill. Finally, there seems to be at least a reasonable possibility that being vaccinated will reduce a person's ability to infect others.
All in all, any of the leading vaccines available in the West look like a better bet, for me and the people around me, than just crossing my fingers and hoping.
Should I take it now or wait? There seems little doubt that vaccines will be refined over the coming years. A vaccine taken in 2023 will probably be safer, and certainly better understood, than one taken in 2021. But someone who waits two years has endured two extra years' risk of suffering, spreading and possibly dying from Covid. You would have to think that vaccines are much more dangerous than I do for that to be a reasonable trade-off.
Most people in this thread seems to be forgetting that second part.
Yes, but, given my age/health, wouldn't the people already at risk already have been offered the vaccine? And if they opted against it, they also made their choice?
And for the people that are unable to get the vaccine for whatever reason, isn't that a scenario in which I feel it's either me putting my safety at risk instead of them putting theirs?
I am sympathetic towards people that are allergic or for whatever other reason cannot get the vaccine, but in the same way that they opted to not take the vaccine to protect their health, is that not exactly what I'm suggesting? I do not feel the vaccine is verified safe and am attempting to protect my health?
Curious what you think.
Also, ballpark 20% of Americans already had the disease, and the benefit for them (while still there) is lower. Also pregnancy. So multiple reasons why 10% is probably not crazy. For what it was worth, I was also a bit confused by the order, as I think they randomize it or something and almost tapped the wrong one.
Rates of COVID reinfection remain vanishingly small.
From what I read, Corona-virii are in general slow to mutate and infected people should be immune for a longer time. Also, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this idea that a vaccine should neatly work in a way that it would be recommended to take it on every season smells of a pharma PR submarine.
Really? I know multiple people who genuinely believe this. Yes you'll always get some constant of random picks, but you also have to understand that our social circles hugely limit us from representative samples of the population's opinions. The only people I know who have actually been in crazy cat lady houses were because they worked as repairmen, since there you'll get a sample of the population which needs their furnace looked at sometimes
If you’re in the 0.1% of the population with severe allergies, you should skip most vaccines. Herd immunity is a thing, and (most — probably these) vaccines will protect you by making the people around you stop spreading it.
If you’re in this category, you’d have already been told so by your doctor.
Also, most people carrying epi-pens don’t know full severity of their allergies since there is no way to test it.
Will you quit drinking alcohol?
1. Why do many people say no?
2. Well it isn’t recommended for the pregnant [therefore either a large proportion of hn is pregnant or the vaccine is generally bad]
3. [not many people on hn are pregnant so] do you also refuse alcohol because that is bad for the pregnant?
4. [I think you’re suggesting that pregnant people often drink alcohol so I put it to you that] in my experience pregnant people don’t drink alcohol.
5. This comment
Bullshit.
I'm honestly unaware of where the 70% number came from (I may simply have missed it), but he, alongside former Council of Europe Parliament chair Wolfgang Wodarg jointly filed a document with the EMA urging that a large-scale roll-out of the vaccine be delayed until further trials could be ran on it which accounted for pregnancy [5].
His primary concern was that it would impact placental development.
Michael Yeadon worked with Pfizer between 1995, and 2011 where he was the Chief Science Officer, and Vice President of the company's R&D division focused on allergy and respiratory illness [0].
In 2011, Pfizer decided to narrow its focus down to five distinct areas of research, and closed down Yeadon's lab [1, 2].
Yeadon, along with two other colleagues secured venture funding from Pfizer's investment fund, and license from Pfizer to continue their research as an independent company called Ziarco, which continued to operate until it was purchased by Novartis in 2016 in 2016[3, 4]
Since cashing out, Yeadon has operated as a research consultant [0].
Yeadon is notably a lock-down skeptic, and has made claims that London has long since reached herd-immunity. He's a biochemist, not a virologist. I don't know how correct he is or isn't. But his history suggests that he's not someone who's opinion on pharmaceuticals should be taken lightly. Wodarg has similarly suggested that the COVID pandemic is overhyped. Wodarg's a politician with some medical education. I don't know that he's anywhere near authoritative.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-yeadon-3818613/
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/kent/hi/people_and_places/newsid...
[2] https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Pfizer-narrows-its-f...
[3] https://drug-dev.com/ziarco-pharma-acquires-pfizer-drugs-sec...
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2017/03/15/turnin...
[5] https://dryburgh.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Wodarg_Yeado...
Honestly this whole poll post should be shut down. The amount of misinformation being shared is astounding.
Yes alcohol should be avoided if pregnant. Smoking as well. Cat litterboxes can pose a risk.
Many other products are removed because of unknown risks.
“Despite the categorization of pregnancy as a high-risk condition for severe COVID-19, hospitalization, and mortality, pregnancy remains an exclusion for participation in vaccine trials. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) and other leading organizations, including the National Academy of Medicine, have consistently advocated for the inclusion of pregnant and lactating women in vaccination trials, particularly when the following criteria are met: (1) pregnancy poses increased susceptibility to or severity of a disease; (2) the best approach to protect the infant is through passive placental antibody transfer, which provides the most efficient and direct protection to the newborn before an infant can be vaccinated, and (3) there is an active outbreak.”
“In general, SMFM strongly recommends that pregnant women have access to COVID-19 vaccines in all phases of future vaccine campaigns, and that she and her healthcare professional engage in shared decision-making regarding her receipt of the vaccine. Counseling should balance available data on vaccine safety, risks to pregnant women from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and a woman’s individual risk for infection and severe disease. As data emerge, counseling will likely shift, as some vaccines may be more suitable for pregnant women. mRNA vaccines, which are likely to be the first vaccines available, do not contain a live virus but rather induce humoral and cellular immune response through the use of viral mRNA. Healthcare professionals should also counsel their patients that the theoretical risk of fetal harm from mRNA vaccines is very low.”
[1]: https://www.smfm.org/covidclinical
[2]: https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.smfm.org/media/2591/SMFM_Vaccin...
You could create a poll if you doubt it, I trust my gut :)
1. HN is a mostly technical forum, with a technically inclined user base.
2. Statistics show that there are less women working in Tech than men [1,2]. This can be translated in interest in Tech.
3. Only a fraction of those women would be on HN, and only a fraction of them would be pregnant.
4. One more data point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5520342
You can therefore safely assume that it's a very tiny number, which can not explain the NO responses of this poll.
[1] https://www.womentech.net/en-fr/women-technology-statistics
[2] https://www.isemag.com/2020/10/telecom-the-latest-stats-on-w...
The poll’s intent is to understand why one would not want to take it, not whether they should. The government already makes that choice for you. See “People with allergies should avoid the vaccine.”
For the same reason I never got a rabies vaccine until having to work in close proximity with rabid animals. Up until that point, my chances of dying from rabies were pretty slim to none.
Likewise, my chances of severe complications, death, or even experiencing any symptoms at all are slim to none. The at risk people around me will be likely vaccinated, so i'm not putting them at risk.
Now, the rabies vaccine came with some known risk, a bit higher than others, hence why it's only given to people who request it or need it.
This covid vaccine is brand new, rushed, the manufacturers are legally exempt from liability for damages the vaccines cause most places in the world and it's a mostly new technology not really tested or used before.
There are potential side effects, these side effects are potentially long term and severely debilitating and despite being a low risk, it's still a higher risk for me than experiencing anything terrible from covid.
So, why put myself at some unknown risk from some unknown thing over something that, is more than likely not, going to cause me severe problems?
It's not known with any kind of certainty which carries more risk of long term side effects. Or aggregate harm if you want to look at it that way.
The vaccines do seem to reduce risk of severe Covid, across age groups (One didn't have any severe disease in the vaccine group).
Get it for the sake of other people. Someday the tables may be turned and you'll be hoping others make a sacrifice for you.
Why does it even matter either way? 3% of the population is severely at risk from this. 3%.
If those 3% of people are vaccinated, then why does it even matter if anyone else is?
And lastly because it’s really fucking dumb to skip it because “I’ll only kill 3% of my friends and family.” Don’t be a nitwit. Get the fucking vaccine.
They can't all be. A significant chunk of the people at risk are also immunocompromised, which means the vaccine will be counter indicated and they rely on the disease not reaching them.
In order for the disease not to reach them, you need herd immunity.
Also, do you want to have a normal life again? Take the damn vaccine. We won't get to looser restrictions without achieving herd immunity, and herd immunity needs 60 percent of people, not the 3 percent at risk.
"I'll let others get it and be part of the 40 percent who want to have a normal life ASAP but won't do anything to contribute to that" is the most selfish shit.
This entire exercise in waiting for the vaccine was so we could get there.
Your risk perception is way off. Like orders of magnitude off. You're also assuming the risks of catching COVID are known and minor, but the risks of a vaccine are unknown and possibly off.
In reality it's the inverse. We have well over a hundred years of research into how vaccines interact with our bodies, as well as similar knowledge of things like manufacturing safety, injection best-practices, etc. While the exact mechanism of the mRNA vaccines is new to vaccines, it's been studied very closely in tens of thousands of people over several years (there have been several mRNA vaccines in the pipeline, but due to less immediate advantages their approval is slower going). It's mechanism is new for vaccines, but well understood.
COVID on the other hand is a virus where some of the immediate, worst effects are known and feel safer. But that's completely not true. The immediate effects we know are very dangerous (As a 39yr old male, I stand a 1/2000 chance of dying if I get the disease) and you're not factoring the risk of unknown long-term effects, which are unknown. It's entirely possible that damage done from the virus could have long-term hidden consequences that we won't know for many years.
So then you're left with your risk of catching the virus. Of course, this varies greatly based on behavior and region. You may feel safe, and you may indeed be relatively so, but of the hundreds of thousands of people who found out they tested positive today I'm willing to bet a good chunk of them felt just as safe as you.
Except, I don't care if I test postive or not. If I get sick enough i'll go to the hospital i'll deal with it the same as I would any other disease that puts me in the hosptial. Until then, i'll keep doing what i've doing wearing a mask when I need to and respectfully maintaining distance from people.
In France, in Marseilles, they studied all people who died from covid in the hopsital during the first episode. They calculated the Charlson score for each patient. What they found is that very large majority of people who died have a low life expectancy and all expect 2 patients have one or more co-morbidities (cancer, diabetes, etc).
So if you are healthy then you real risk is below the average of the same age group.
Of primary importance, COVID-19 appears to be easily and completely cleared by the human immune system and does not appear to become latent by settling in immune privileged areas or by integrating itself into the human genome or body in any other way (like Epstein-Barr, Herpesvirus, HIV, etc.)
Outside of the mainstream media and in the medical research literature COVID-19 has been thought to be easily "curable" since early on in the pandemic. In my opinion there appeared to be more uncertainty around the FDA and the rapid development timelines than there ever was around whether or not an effective and complete treatment could be developed.
A severe infection or cytokine storm may obviously cause lasting damage. I do not mean to suggest that everyone will be off the hook in the future!
We know both the virus and the vaccine will be out of your system within a short period of time. So any long term effects would have to be derived from what happens while they're in your system. The vaccine generates a few proteins, which your immune system learns to fight off in short order. The virus generates similar proteins, but continues to replicate many times over, attacking your cells and triggering a much more severe immune response as it goes.
So while there are unknown long-term risks for both, I think it is pretty safe to say the number of vectors for long term consequences are much more numerous with the virus.
I absolutely cannot agree more strongly that the long term consequences of any of the COVID vaccines will be far fewer than those of the virus itself.
A better way to state my point was to say that other diseases can cause exactly the same types of cell damage, and having, say, reduced lung function or some neuropathy going forward after a COVID infection are not themselves new and novel medical problems.
I have had COVID despite my best attempts to do everything possible not to contract it. For complete transparency here, I have a strongly vested interest in knowing the truth of this matter. I agree that there is not a strong consensus yet. Sorry I do not have great references at hand to share right now either.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
From a personal perspective, no, because my age-based health risk, and my local community transmission rates approach zero, so vaccination has negligible upside at this point in time and space for me.
I might see data that could change either perspective and my willingness to be vaccinated. Also if I need to travel internationally I may be willing or forced to do so.
any other reasons?
If I'm not mistaken, some countries like France still remember such vaccines that went wrong. Russians have zero trust in their government and its Sputnik vaccine.
I will get the vaccine eventually, but I don't mind not being in front of the queue.
For the record, vaccines are not a controversial topic in my country like they seem to be in the USA. Kids are vaccinated at school, I received numerous vaccines during my life, some of them totally optional and quite expensive, which I paid for anyway, because it felt like a safer way to be. And of course I do not think vaccines are an evil plan of Bill Gates to... I'm not even sure what the crazy conspiracy theory about that is supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure there is some.
But I am a crazy conspiracy theorist in a sense that I firmly believe that COVID-19 is hugely overhyped. Of course, I'm scared and ashamed of saying that, because nowadays this seems to be a stronger version of saying "Hitler did nothing wrong", but you are asking about "why no", so here we are.
Basically, it's a trade off between reasons to do it and reasons not to (as always).
Is there a reason to avoid doing it? Well, yes. Basically, expectation that everyone should do it is that reason: the topic is insanely hot, and it's never a good thing. This is a huge business opportunity for every pharmaceutical company that gets to push their vaccine right now, and this is some hastily cooked shit you expect me to take. Some of these vaccines are quite a novelty, which is not a bad thing on its own, but this is unlike most vaccines I have ever taken, which are basically decades old and literally millions of people have taken them before me. Maybe it's totally safe, maybe it isn't. No couple-months-long trial will ever answer that.
Is there a reason to take it? Well, sure. Like there is a reason to take a flu vaccine. Which I don't do, because there are new mutations every year, and there are countless more versions of "common cold". Yes, people die of that, and it's never a pleasant experience, and I live in a cold climate, where this is a very common seasonal thing, but it's just how things are. It's ok. And I'm not going to elaborate on all "Hitler did nothing wrong" thing, because what I've said so far is more than enough to trigger someone, but, well, I know people that had been sick with COVID-19. I contacted them in person when they were already sick, and it just so happens that neither of us was wearing any mask. I wasn't really a responsible citizen all the time. It doesn't seem that the stakes are much higher than with a flu. For some of people it seemed to be more like a really light version of a common cold.
So there's a little of "no" vs a little of "yes" and it just so happens that "no" overweights quite confidently.
Maybe it is fair to say that I should've voted "I'll wail", because this "no" isn't final. But then no "yes" is final either, anything can happen, the last year should've taught us that if anything. And I don't have any specific date I have to wait for. The point is, currently I'm not going to do that, and I hope it stays this way.
I've read your concerns and take the gravest possible offense to this. It's not just about the new coronavirus, but what comes next. Tools like crispr are now within the means of the nuclear boyscout, who can unleash an airborne pathogen upon humanity that performs genetic engineering at scale. All that's required is the will to do so. Stuff like that frightens me far more. If the reaction to this new coronavirus is what's needed to help humanity prepare, then we're likely to be far safer and healthier down the road.
Information on contagion: https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2020/10/exposed-to-...
The thing about the flu is that you develop symptoms earlier, so the window of oportunity for unknowing transmission is shorter (on average). From what we know at this time, it's a less deadly disease than COVID-19. And it mutates quickly, with each season bringing new strains. I think if it was possible to erradicate it completely through vaccination that would be something worth considering, too. Nobody likes that it exists.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
https://bgr.com/2020/10/21/coronavirus-death-rate-vs-flu-cdc... (sourced)
If only the global attention and resources that have gone into the covid crisis could be channelled into the many equally, or more serious issues affecting humanity and the planet today (e.g poverty, oppression, war, over population, pollution, tuberculosis etc.). But they are not the new hot shiny problem, just our boring, faulty and irreplaceable legacy system.
Having recovered completely from such an infection, I should be fine without it, and vaccines generally don't feel great and are not, in fact, without risk.
I think vaccines are a wonderful technology, to be clear. I'll get one for COVID only if it's standing between me and, say, getting on an airplane or entering a foreign country, which, let's be real: it probably will. States see like a state, after all; you can't just be immune to infection, you have to be legibly immune.
Where did you get the information that it was several years?
Others should be fine for months:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6521/1227
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4257
To whom it may concern: vaccines simulate the process triggered in the immune system by recovery from infection. They don't float around in your body for years: they create immunity the same way the disease itself does. More or less: obviously you don't get sick!
Which is great, I hadn't been that sick in ten years, it was pretty awful. Please get vaccinated if you haven't gotten COVID. If you have, well, maybe you want to do it just in case? I do not.
A lot of misinformation out there...
My insurance covered the cost of all my testing as it was done in conjunction with a televisit with my GP. I hear that it is available for approximately $60 if you just pay retail for it. If you give blood at your local blood bank, many are offering the antibody test as an incentive to donate.
The vaccine, while probably fine, seems like more of a wildcard to me. It seems like a low-probability lottery ticket to bad news, whereas COVID seems like a lower-probability lottery ticket to bad news.
(Of course, the government may force the issue. I hope not, though. My body, my choice and all that.)
(The same reason I usually get a flu shot: it's not that I can't withstand the flu, it's that there are those around me who might not withstand it. I don't want to be responsible for having passed that on to someone.)
Many things we selfishly do endanger others. Ever driven a car?
But honestly, in my gut, I don't feel like I'm endangering people. I'm doing the thing that I think will most likely make me healthy, and that will most likely result in best outcomes for others, too.
I may have some bias here because the only 2 times I've gotten the flu as an adult are the two times I got the the flu shot, like you're supposed to do. So maybe that's just coincidence, but my operating theory now is, no more flu shots until I get the flu again. If I do, then I'll reconsider.
Yes, and I take various precautions when doing so to reduce the risk to those around me. But, driving a car gets me from point A to B. There's a trade-off. Near as I can tell from the available data from studies on the new vaccines, the risk and consequences of getting COVID outweigh the risks and consequences of getting the vaccine, perhaps by several orders of magnitude.
The number of both cases & deaths have reached nation-wide highs, and basically all states are seeing upticks in prevalence, likely to be made worse by Christmas. The tests on the vaccines have shown it to be effective, and have had minimal side-effects (I've heard some reports of non-life-threatening allergic reaction, and 1 more serious case that is being investigated. There were 43,000 people in the Pfizer study alone, I think. That is significantly better than the confirmed COVID-19 case rate. https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/09/covid-19-vaccine-from-pf...)
> I may have some bias here because the only 2 times I've gotten the flu as an adult are the two times I got the the flu shot, like you're supposed to do. So maybe that's just coincidence, but my operating theory now is, no more flu shots until I get the flu again. If I do, then I'll reconsider.
It's just coincidence:
> studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.
(https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm)
i agree the flu shot is probably coincidence, but at least until/if i get the flu w/o it, i'm going to be guided by my first-hand experience for now. if i get the flu again, i will do more research and reconsider.
It's quite dangerous if a lot people don't get that the covid vaccines also aren't proved (and are unlikely) to contain transmission. Risk is folks think that we will not longer need to care about hygiene, masks, isolation, quarantine and tracing once most people have been vaccinated.
This directly contradicts the CDC:
> Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you, including those who are more vulnerable to serious flu illness, like babies and young children, older people, and people with certain chronic health conditions.
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/keyfacts.htm
I don't know the actual science here - but they could very well have zero evidence that it protects others and still correctly say that getting the flu vaccine may protect others.
I would take a vaccine (only Pfizer or Moderna) and the associated risks over the experience I'm having now 10/10.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
It's one of the most quickly developed vaccines ever. Being rushed by everyone in society and everyone is guilting people into getting it. They did trials but long term effects take decades to discover. Doctors used to recommend specific brands of cigarettes for example.
It's not illogical or unintelligent to be skeptical of the long term adverse effects of this vaccine. Plus I can stay avoiding crowds. I've been working remotely for years and don't have travel plans for a while.
If so, why get a vaccine for something you are immune to?
I ask because the answer seems so obvious, of course not.
That's my situation too, but I voted yes under the assumption that I won't be allowed to take it until all the higher risks groups have gotten it.
But I'm in America and assumed in January/February that we'd handle this pandemic far better than we actually did. So maybe I'll be unpleasantly surprised again to find the first doses allocated by some corruptly shortsighted system like an auction.
Also your logic relies on false assumptions. You are not likely to get seriously ill from the virus. You are still just fine, get the virus and be infected.
- I'm young & healthy and want to wait until people who are more vulnerable than me have gotten theirs.
- I wouldn't ever run .0 releases in prod. I don't have a pressing need for the vaccine and can afford to see if there are any unexpected side-effects or complications with other diseases and conditions that don't show until its given to a larger population.
- I am currently very sick and so receiving any vaccine would be dangerous for me.
- I've already gotten COVID so I should be the last person in line.
Never:
- I already know that I'm allergic to something in the vaccine.
- I have a weakened or compromised immune system and can't take most vaccines and my doctor says this is no exception.
- (I don't know if this one is true) I've already gotten COVID so I don't need the vaccine.
When it's a 10/15 minute job at a local pharmacy like the normal winter flu jab then by all means I'll get it.
What principle?
- They think it will be bad for their health or public health
- They think it is some UN microchip plot
- They have a moral objection to how it was developed
- They think it is the actual “mark of the beast” from the Bible
The people who decline will be in the minority (at least visibly), and they will be bullied relentlessly by the visible majority, so to protect our rights I have to stand with them.
If you don't want to take it for any reason whatsoever, fair enough. It's your right. But at least be honest and defend your choice on its own instead of hiding behind some "principle" that doesn't really exist.
In a different circumstance, I would probably only get it for convenience, because I don’t really believe in messing with peoples’ immune systems without a much clearer benefit. I’m not convinced about the long-term public health benefit of flu shots either. You may disagree, which would not surprise me.
But again, that thinking is irrelevant in this case, because exercising liberty is FAR more important than “staying safe”.
The point I'm trying to understand is that you are basically saying "I am not getting because I don't want to and it is within my rights to not take it", which is totally fine. But I am failing to see how this is a "principled" statement. It's like saying "I will smoke a pack of cigarettes in my bathtub because I am free to do so". Claiming any "principle" stand there is based at best in circular logic.
Like it or not, this is a political issue, and your choice has a political effect.
So no, I won’t take it until I see how it plays out in society. And if I am persuaded by the evidence, I might take it. I’ve taken only 1 flu shot. As someone in mid-20s, I have low risk and honestly would prefer getting the flu to injecting myself with a vaccine. So I’ve elected to stop getting flu shots and take the risk. For now, I think 18 hours of suffering isn’t that bad. When I’m over the age of 40, or over 60, or at whatever age I decide, then maybe I’ll reconsider if I prefer to get sick or take a vaccine that may or may not work, given the multitude of strains of the flu.
For now, I wash my hands, wash my food, keep shoes outside, and stay home if I’m sick. Responsible self-quarantining and healthy diet are my strategies to avoid contracting or spreading sickness.
This is a very selfish take. Unless you're living your life without any human interaction, then you're contributing to the spread of the flu and soon to be covid which impacts people who are at risk.
Are these the people downvoting me?
- It's too new - not Lindy.
- I am reasonably convinced that I had it back in February, when people were not talking about it. It was very different from every year that I got the 'flu and I experienced anosmia, which never happened before. I still take all the precautions possible, but for all intents and purposes, I consider myself already immunized.
- I'm already working from home, my social life is the one of a parent of two small kids - i.e, almost non-existent, occasionally meeting small groups of either family or close friends. My parents are on the other side of the ocean and aside from them I haven't much interaction with people that could be at-risk.
- If herd immunity is achieved with ~60-70% vaccination, why take the risk when the social butterflies and those with key activities (health care workers, teachers, people working in retail) will likely be rushed to take it?
(Okay, I try to avoid complaining about downvotes, but downvoting a comment from someone that is just providing personal opinion? You can do better than that, HN...)
This is why it's important that everyone who can take it does take it, because there's a percentage of the population who can't, and we are only protected when the community reaches some level of heard immunity.
If you're able to take it please do.
I wish you safety and good health until a suitable vaccine becomes available to you.
People at high risk should go first, then people who are super social (or stupid + spreading the plague).
Especially younger people, they need to get pricked. Do you really think they're going to avoid drinking close physical contact in spring? Me neither.
When it's available to you, go get it.
Is it that one, or some other administration you’re thinking of?
Then when they're wrong - they say "oh yeah we lied, we didn't want a run on masks for health workers". Such BS. They didn't know non-surgical/non-(k)n95 masks could be useful.
It's ok to admit when you're wrong. Better than saying you lied. Especially when there's enough distrust of government.
The US administration is culpable. But so are the experts. People need to be able to trust their experts.
Separately - I find it ridiculous we have people that are all about science, except when their agenda conflicts.
We end up with exceptions for religion. Exceptions for protests. Exceptions for filming movies. Whatever. If you have enough influence or can cause enough outrage about something you can get your way.
Nobody has the balls to take hard stances. They create these illogical plans based on who is influencing them.
Is there any official who was consistent and pragmatic with their pandemic plan?
That was forever ago and only a few weeks into the US crises(couple weeks after first lockdowns started). There absolutely was a PPE shortage at the time, and there absolutely was new information coming in about the efficacy of wearing non N95 masks. That's a lot of attribution to malice or incompetence for such a dynamic situation that shaped up in such a relatively short amount of time..
Meanwhile the current admin had their last maskless rally what, just in the past week or so?
You seem to be ok glossing over that because you want to talk about the current admin when I'm not even talking about that. I agree with the culpability there.
Fauci - In March he said "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask" [1] The CDC and WHO were doing the same.
Also regarding the lie, "“We were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and public face head of the federal government’s coronavirus response, told The Street in an interview this week." [2]
You can go utilitarian if you want and say that's cool. Maybe you are ok with them lying to you because you believe them and think that was their only option. My point stands that there's enough distrust of the government. I don't believe they should do that, connect a lie to experts we are supposed to trust, and I don't believe that was their only option to prevent a shortage.
A lot of incompetence.
#1 not having enough masks in the first place, replenishing our supply
#2 talking about things they don't know and
#3 because they were incorrectly claiming cloth masks weren't useful for the public, they ended up parlaying that into a lie to try and prevent a shortage.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hvLiA2akE
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/dr-fauci-admits-feds-initi...
edit As was correctly pointed out, I should mention I'm speaking purely about the US and not any other country.
Which creates a force field around the warehouses in which it sits? Come on.
I guess I’ll revise to I know of people with substantial resources, hundreds of millions and billions at their disposal, who have been injected with something they believe to be the Pfizer vaccine.
There are easier ways for people in power to get vaccines. In China, the government has granted exceptional permissions to vaccinate a number of people with a vaccine that has not yet completed phase 3 trials. The list of people who qualify for that vaccine is said to be several million people long. It's much easier to get on said list in China than it is anywhere else. A number of other governments have also made exceptions for political leaders and such, treating them with non-approved medication or vaccines. For example, the sheikh of Dubai has been vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine before approval (in a very public display of faith in said vaccine, in order to promote vaccination to the population). Some countries are saying they won't bother waiting for phase 3 trials to end on some products and will make vaccines generally available based on current data. This is the case for Russia (with Sputnik-V) and Morocco (with the Sinopharm vaccine). I consider it highly likely that their heads of state are vaccinated under an exceptional authorization.
This is a global pandemic, trials with 30 000 patients x 5, each one of those vials worth an absolute fortune, there's a 100% chance quite a bit of it has fled into the black market and a sophisticated one at that.
And to wit - there are a lot of people being 'officially' vaccinated right now behind the scenes they're not going to tell us about.
It might be dangerous for politicians to get it early, because if asked by reporters either they have to lie, or say 'yes' and then public outcry.
Special Forces, the Secret Service and some other security personal - just a some examples are going to get it long before we plebes. Among others.
https://www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(20)30027-1
and has had good results in trials from March.
Also, I'm guessing that JumpCrissCross doesn't know specifically that it is the Pfizer vaccine. It could be the Moderna one.
> A more promising vaccine was developed in January 2020 and requires only -4C
Which vaccine is this? The link you just posted talks about Moderna, which started trials in August.
Designed by Jan 13, manufactured and first trial by mid-Feb.
Also quote ..
>as early as July the MIT Technology Review reported that a group of 70 scientists in the orbit of Harvard and MIT, including “celebrity geneticist” George Church, were taking a totally DIY nasal-spray vaccine,
This is likely complete misinformation. Why is there so much misinformation on HN today?
Yup. It’s sitting in warehouses ready for distribution. No idea how. And no idea how they trusted it to be legitimate.
That was frankly my line of questioning. But at least in the German case, the vials and packaging looked legitimate. And it was a reputable doctor administering it at their home who claimed to have directly procured it, though I’m sure that meant warehouse workers or something in the middle, so who knows.
Agree. From how prevalently I watched tests get mis-allocated a few months ago, however, I’m not optimistic about enforcement. Particularly given the political implications it would have for the leaders in power, who are supposed to be doing a better job at this.
Same thing happened with tests a few months ago in Palo Alto. Billionaires with boxes of them at their homes while public stocks ran low.
PS: They were no COVID vaccine in October but clinical trials.
What you're talking about is literally a black market. The people you are hanging out with are literally criminals, who are at best injecting themselves with an unknown substance provided by criminal doctors. Most of us probably wish to see such people prosecuted.
Maybe you knew someone participating in a study but that's not queue skipping.
Don't get me wrong I hate billionaires but this just seems like it can't factually be correct.
It's easily conceivable that billionaires have been pushing to be 'in the loop' on the meds from the start, and will have gained access long ago to whatever was used in the most promising trials. They can take it as soon as the insider doctors flag that it's ok, likely many weeks before any public announcement, and certainly before any governmental validation.
The value of said vaccines are considerable, there's massive money involved, I wonder if the R&D institutions themselves may have been able to find a loophole to allow for it.
With the sheer number of doctors and patients involved in the trial, and vials worth possibly $100-500K on the black market ... it's bound to get out.
And frankly, who cares? A couple thousand early vaccines is basically meaningless from a public health standpoint. It might even be moral to have publicly auctioned off the first mini batch and put the money into production. It's rational because the 'willingness to pay' of some billionaires for the almost arbitrary early access to a vaccine which will soon be cheap and plentiful ... works well as a 'win win' both for the buyer, and society.
Boxes of the test kits. I was giving precedence. Frankly surprised this is news to so many people. It’s well known in e.g. D.C. circles.
Trump isn't sitting in the Oval deciding which Walgreens are getting the vaccine when.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is paying for the vaccine doses. It is up to individual's insurance plan to pay for administration of the vaccine. I'm not sure how that works for somebody who lacks insurance.
More details: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/health/cms-medicare-covid-vac...
But to your point, from sending humans into space to clearing snow off the roads, "government" absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things. I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_government_respon...
Or, specifically:
> Due to the slow response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city.[10] New Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."[10]
On COVID:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelyncorley/2020/04/10/us-g...
I think that two colossal failures are enough to convey a "The government responds inefficiently and generally poorly to significant humanitarian issues".
> absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things.
Maybe. Lots of private sector work is held up specifically _by_ government.
> I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.
I mean... I agree. But I never suggested we leave vaccines in the hands of chain businesses. I just pointed out that, historically, the US government botches jobs like this spectacularly. The confidence lots of these comments have in the govt efficiently distributing the vaccinations based on need, to me, is not in line with the realities of the US government wrt issues of public health and safety.
I'm not going to be trying to jump ahead in that line because i'm not an asshole and i know other people need it more than I do. but also I'm a little bit of an asshole, so i'm kind of reassured to know that hundreds of millions of people will have gotten it before me, and if there are any issues there will have been plenty of time to sort them out.
My pharmacy does COVID testing but only if you show no symptoms. The gov health networks tell symptomatic people to be tested in hospital set up centers. But high risk people are still high risk people, whether they are showing symptoms or not.
My hunch is most of the queues for vaccines will be type A e.g. the elderly. Not necessarily more likely to have COVID, but more likely to be at risk of severe symptoms if they were to get it.
If my local bike shop has figured out the concept of no-contact service appointments by now, I'm pretty sure the health department can do it.
I’ve gone whole months without drinking close physical contact!
Same. Just like first generation Apple hardware, even if looks as good as the M1, I'd rather have other people take the plunge before I do.
In about a year, I may. By then, we'll have 2 years worth of data from the test group - good enough!
If I perceive any serious risk, I won't. Being young and with no risk factors, I have little to gain - so the rational move for me is to leech off the group herd immunity effect.
So people, please, do the right thing and get vaccinated!! Protect your parents and your neighbors!!!
If it’s your turn to get the vaccin, take it or you stay in quarantine until you get it. That’s my take
What if somebody has asymptomatic covid infection? He or she spreads it without intent, you can not blame them.
Yes, given what is widely publicly known about the disease, I can very easily blame people who are involved engaging in high-spread-risk behavior despite being a-(or, more likely if they are actually spreading it, pre-)symptomatic and who are thereby spreading the virus they don’t know they have.
On the other hand, if someone knows they've been exposed and still behave carelessly, I'm absolutely fine with charging people with attempted murder, endangering the public health, or something similar.
What's the difference between passing this on unintentionally and passing any other virus or disease unintentionally?
No, attempted murder requires specific intent. For the most egregious conduct when they know they are at particularly high risk of being a spreader, even without intent, if someone actually dies, it might arguably be close to depraved-indifference rather than intent-to-kill murder, but more generally negligent homicide if they actually kill people and reckless endangerment, otherwise, would be closer selections from the generically-common American set of crimes. But I’m not arguing they should be criminally liable; saying that an act is not beyond moral blame is not the same that it technically fits — or, even if it does, should necessarily be prosecuted as — a crime.
Mingling with other people at a similar comfort level of contract Covid - that’s just adults being adults. That’s freedom.
But if those people then go to unavoidable places like grocery stores, they’re putting people at risk who don’t have much of a choice.
In the situation of Covid it would be something like infecting another person without the intent to infect, but where the person's health might be endangered as a result of the negligent or reckless actions of the defendant (the one who spread the virus).
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/hiv-exposure-sex-crimes-sna...
If you are spreading COVID in the US, whether or not you're symptomatic, it's a conscious choice.
This virus has been primarily spread by people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic, particularly indoors and maskless.
At this point, if you're indoors and maskless with anyone outside your family or "pod" you are completely culpable if you spread the disease. Probably not legally, but morally.
Many such people will have antibodies already. As do I. I’ll get the vaccine if it becomes a requirement to travel or whatever, but I see no need for it in the short term if you’re low risk and already had Covid.
We don’t have enough information yet to say how protected someone might be from being infected again if they have antibodies to the virus.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/resources/anti...
How long IgM and IgG antibodies remain detectable following infection is not known.
...
it remains uncertain to what degree and for how long individuals with antibodies (neutralizing or total) are protected against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 or what concentration of antibodies may be needed to provide such protection.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/resources/anti...
Sure, but it seems to have worked so far. And if having natural antibodies doesn't give long-term immunity, then will vaccine-induced antibodies? We don't know.
> "How long IgM and IgG antibodies remain detectable following infection is not known."
Having detectable antibodies is not the same thing as immunity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8
My complete layman understanding would be that it should at least somewhat prevent the spreading because replication has to be limited if a vaccine works and replication is also an important part of giving the disease to others? If less cells are infected you can't cough out the virus as much? But the exact timeline is important here, obviously. Again, complete layman, I know basically nothing about this.
My understanding was always that public employees everywhere in the United States, especially the traditionally blue places, are impervious to corruption.
When has there ever been a record in history where a public employee in CA was found to be corrupt?
If the media are to be believed, these people are humble, simple people, without any nefarious bones in their bodies.
Bizarrely, Prison Officers' unions are arguing that prisoners should get ahead of people who haven't committed crime to get the Coronavirus Vaccine. See this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2020/12/11/h...
This is just the beginning. There will be plenty of such public employee unions that will be jockeying for access over private citizens. And these unions spend huge amounts of money on their preferred candidates in elections to the State Legislatures, among other governments.
Apparently there are two types of narcolepsia, type 1 is an autoimmune reaction against a hormone which regulates wakefulness and sleep. Pandemrix caused the type 1 in some people.
The whole situation is quite well known in Sweden and Finland. Over the years, there have been news articles and documentaries on TV, and so on. It is very sad to see young children injured for life because of a vaccine which was supposed to be safe.
The majority of the cases got symptoms in a few months, but some after 1.5 years.
To crown this whole debacle, internal GSK documents with signals of safety concerns were ignored (Pandemrix adverse effects were compared to an almost identical vaccine called Arepanrix). [1]
I took the Pandemrix back in the days. I'm definitely not an "anti-vaxxer", but sorry, I won't be the first in line for another rushed pandemia vaccine.
[1] https://www.fiercepharma.com/vaccines/glaxosmithkline-fails-...
Edit: reword sentence
The point is not the H1N1 vaccines used in the USA in general, the point is not Arenaprix, Focetria or even Pandemrix used on populations of non-Finnish ancestry, and the point is not the use of adjuvants in general.
The point is the problem which GSK's Pandemrix used specifically in Sweden and Finland created.
If you read that page, it refers to a paper from 2018. If you look closely, 4 authors received money from GSK, but it is not relevant. The relevant parts are that the paper: 1. Actually found increased rates in Sweden, "Other than elevated narcolepsy IRs in the period after vaccination campaigns in Sweden, we did not find..." 2. Did not examine Finland at all.
The most impacted country was skipped since it was the other signalling country. This may seem weird, but the purpose was to establish whether Pandemrix and/or other H1N1 vaccinations were generally safe elsewhere.
And, so, yes. There is no conspiracy, in general, H1N1 vaccinations are safe, for most people.
However, let us now go to the specifics.
There were and are unfortunate Finnish and Swedish children, who have HLA DQB1*06:02 and who, together with the proteins present in GSK's Pandemrix, possibly in combination with exposure to A(H1N1), developed narcolepsy because their orexin-producing cells in the hypothalamus were somehow damaged through an autoimmune response.
So, interesting fact: use of Pandemrix increased narcolepsy rates in Finland and Sweden. This connection was due to the genetic specifics of Finns and the contents of the vaccine itself.
My point, which I want to re-iterate, is this: these kinds of connections cannot be seen with some months of clinical testing, especially not when there is an immense pressure to succeed. Any company getting problems with their vaccine would see their stock price collapse.
I saw and remember what happened the last time. Now I want to see more testing before I commit.
One key point in my question that I'm stuck on, though, if you happen to know the answer: how long did the effects take to become apparent in those children? Were they immediate or did they show up long after vaccination? (I'm mainly wondering how long people should expect to wait before side effects become apparent.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix
There is a link in Finland and Sweden with narcolepsy among people who have HLA-DQB1*06:02 and who got Pandemrix.
Does anyone have information on possible side effects?
You're part of the problem.
Derek Lowe, who's worked as a chemist doing drug discovery for 30 years (for whatever that experience is worth to you), wrote an article[2] talking about that report and gives his take on the question of safety.
He's also written an article[3] about how it's likely people will wrongly attribute things that would have happened anyway to having taken the vaccine.
For a techie analogy: Have you ever been roped into doing some computer support for a friend or family member? Fixing a printer, installing a driver, cleaning malware, etc.? Have you ever experienced someone you helped coming back to you the next week blaming you for some new issue that's cropped up because "It must have been you when you worked on it last week!", even though it's because they went to some scummy website or similar? The vaccine rollout is going to be that scenario times a billion.
[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download [2] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/09/th... [3] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/ge...
I think there are completely reasonable reasons for people to consider these vaccines as well. Some have larger phase III trials, and some are tested in different demographics. for example, Arabs might be more comfortable with trials that were run with predominantly arab participants.
Younger people are much less likely to take the vaccine than are older people. People under 45 years old are evenly split between wanting the vaccine and not wanting it. Black respondents are also much less likely to report willingness to the vaccine, perhaps reflecting historic distrust of the medical system.