[lars]

I'm happy this research has been done so quickly, but am somewhat annoyed that the public conversation is so focused on whether or not the vaccine can possibly cause any problems, and not at all focused on the risk management question of what the optimal choice here is.

The chance of getting a blood clot seems so low that it may for all I know be equivalent to the risk of dying in the streets while jaywalking to get to the vaccination center. Compared to the risk of going unvaccinated, it's an obvious choice.

That's not the choice we have though. The correct comparison seems to be the expected risk of taking the vaccine vs expected risk of waiting for a dose of another vaccine. Calculating this on an individual level should be straight forward given the risk of contracting COVID in a given area. Ideally the calculation would also take into account the effect that vaccination has on the virus reproduction number. That's harder to model, but approximate models like this exist.

If you actually put numbers to it and do this computation, you'll get an answer, or at least a distribution of outcomes, where it's straight forward to see what choice is optimal. Then public discussion can be around what the parameters of this model should be, and we'll stand a chance of making the right choice.

This is a potentially very consequential optimization problem, and the public discussion about it is as if no one understands that that is what it is.

[jansan]

>The chance of getting a blood clot seems so low that it may for all I know be equivalent to the risk of dying in the streets while jaywalking to get to the vaccination center. Compared to the risk of going unvaccinated, it's an obvious choice.

Are you sure this holds true for a 25 year old healthy person?

[lars]

Well, this is the discussion I'd like to see.

You have people born in the 90s hospitalized in Norway now. Many experience long term physical and cognitive effects. And as long as we're assuming everyone goes unvaccinated, the chance of contracting COVID goes towards 1 over time, while the R-number explodes as we open up society to avoid economic ruin. Not a good scenario IMO.

As I said, the relevant comparison in the real world is versus waiting for another vaccine, where it the choice is much less obvious, and dependent on the disease level in the population.

[fairity]

I think if we're talking purely from the perspective of self-interest, many healthy individuals have no reason to get vaccinated. Getting vaccinated takes time and effort, and they can freeload off the large fraction of the population who is clearly going to get vaccinated.

I suspect this freeloading incentive is a big reason govt's haven't used the risk-reward framing as the major selling point for vaccines. That, and the fact that for healthy individuals, there are much larger risks you ought to spend your time worrying about (if you're only looking out for your own best interests).

[donovanian]

> Compared to the risk of going unvaccinated, it's an obvious choice.

I think the insidious and repugnant effect of this line of thinking is that it subverts the body autonomy and free will that every human being should enjoy.

The issue isn’t only risk, rather it’s individuals deciding based on their own judgement, which may involve their own evaluation (informed or not) of risk.

The public health establishment is set on presenting the illusion that people have absolutely no choice but to take a vaccine that was rapidly developed using novel technology.

In my opinion, this is unethical. No human being should be coerced or propagandized into taking drugs or medicine of any type.

The only responsibility of government should be presenting boring information about the vaccine to be used by people to decide what they’d like to do. But it’s very clear that society at large is set on propaganda and conformity in the pursuit of technocratic policy goals.

It’s precisely this well-intentioned pursuit of end goals augmented by the certainty of science that allowed the eugenics of the 1920s. And it seems like a century later we think we’re immune to that pernicious illusion afforded by science.

[lars]

Did you respond to right comment? You seem to be arguing against something that I'm not arguing for.