[vmladenov]

This comment is a prime example of why we’re in this mess with vaccine denial in the first place. You’re either not allowed to say anything negative about vaccines, or you’re an anti-vaxxer who thinks your kids will get autism and 5G chips. It’s so cult-like.

We should be honest about the (low) risks and benefits of vaccination without turning it into a political campaign of shame and bullying, and trust people to make the right choice for them and the public.

Perhaps you also think the US government is anti-vaxxer, as it runs a publicly funded National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html

[refurb]

Exactly this. A lot of conversation seems to ignore how humans behave. Pausing, examining data and restarting with updated guidelines further encourages confidence in the process.

Imagine if the FDA says "no big deal, low chance of it happening, keep going", then a week from now "oh seem like the rate has doubled, still low, keep going", then a week later "ok, if you have any risk of blood clots don't take the J&J vaccine". That scream "we didn't think this would happen".

You've just eroded trust in the system and the next time some weird side effects comes up you won't have to pause, people will just refuse to take it.

[arcticbull]

IMO, no - I'm saying that folks risk management is completely out of wack. The chance the disease kills you is 1 in 100. The chance that the vaccine kills you is 1 in 7 000 000. One is bigger than the other. By, like, a lot.

The government's response is to pacify anti-vaxxers.

[vmladenov]

Again with the made up numbers that erode trust.

I’m 25 and I’m relatively healthy. The risk that the disease kills me is significantly less than 1 in 100; it’s hard to find numbers but one chart had the hospitalization rate for me at 1%, and the death rate 0.01% (edit: though the death rate only covered age and didn’t divide by other factors such as obesity). The “chance” the vaccine kills you is currently zero as there have been no recorded deaths that have been linked to a COVID vaccine. The blood clotting risk has been cited as 1 in a million, but we’re working with limited data. This is the problem with making such extrapolations.

I write all of this as I’m on day 2 of dealing with the side effects of J&J.

[arcticbull]

Yep, I used averages not made-up numbers.

The reason everyone has to get it is so that the average goes down to 0, for everyone.

7 million trials is not limited data. It's dramatically, and I do mean dramatically more data than basically any other clinical trial for any other drug you've ever heard of. By probably 2 orders of magnitude. It's simply not limited data.

The average phase 3 trial has 300-3000 participants [1]. Not seven million.

Also a week in after J&J.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_clinical_research

[ryankemper]

> The chance the disease kills you is 1 in 100

It's 6 in 1000 if you listen to the CDC; personally I think the real number is closer to 3 in 1000. That's not too far off from what you said but I prefer being more explicit rather than using such a fuzzy resolution.

And just to be explicit, that's the general IFR, the IFR for, say, people in their 20's, or even people in their 40's, is a fraction of that.

---

Anyway, your point about risk management is somewhat true, but it is much more true if you apply that logic to the general public's fear of SARS-2 in the first place. I can't find it in my notes but surveys that have asked people what their chance of dying is if they catch the virus, are off by MULTIPLE orders of magnitude. And young people rank their individual risk of death higher than old people do (both estimate too high, even the old people), presumably due to them being more "plugged in" to "the system" so to speak.

Personally speaking, since I'm in my 20's, almost everyone I know who has gotten the vaccine has done so because they believe outright falsehoods about the virus that have been propagated not just by the media but by our so-called health experts themselves.

For example, I have multiple friends who had PCR-confirmed COVID-19, recovered months ago, and still got the vaccine. In the times I've probed at them to see why, they muttered some vague things about "the variants" and essentially said that the variants bypass naturalistic immunity which is just completely false.

I know for a fact that my likelihood of an acute adverse reaction (the all-too-common "feeling like death for a day" reaction) is far higher than the likelihood of comparable symptoms from SARS-2 infection. So I'm not getting the vaccine, and I'm not embarrassed to say so. For many people, the risks of the virus are less than risks of the vaccine; however, much less people than you would think. We don't have good enough data yet but I'd bet it crosses over somewhere in the 40's or 50's age range.

There's a huge difference between being an "anti-vaxxer" in the true sense of the word - i.e. you think all vaccines are inherently bad, period - and being someone who takes the same attitude towards vaccines that we do towards drugs: no drug is inherently safe; rather drugs that are proven to be safe are safe. By extension, no vaccine is inherently safe; vaccines that are proven to be safe are safe.

The latter statement is my personal view of it, and unfortunately such a statement can get you banned from social media platforms if you get unlucky.

This binary way of dividing the world into "anti-vaxxer" vs not, "AIDS denialist" vs not, etc is not just oversimplified but is intentionally done to suppress dissent. I refuse to participate in such a culture and I humbly implore you to do so as well.