[kepler1]

Friends, tell me how I should be more positive or community minded in thinking about this.

Because right now, I say -- "anyone who doesn't want a vaccine, well you live with the consequences and if you can't come to rational understanding that it's your own life being saved, then I shed no tears over your choice".

People who do it out of religious (or Republican) dogma, I'm not sympathetic. People who believe in conspiracy theories, I'm not sympathetic. People who have some "cultural history" skeptical of government vaccines, well you have to learn to get over that, one way or another. I'm not that sympathetic. What's the likelihood that the entire US is being subjected to a racially based cruel experiment?

You don't want life saving vaccine, produced from the effort and focus of an entire nation, to bring us out of the worst crisis in a generation? Well, I don't mind if there are fewer of you.

Aside from the issue where people who are not vaccinated affect those who cannot get vaccinated, it's your own life you're gambling with. Go right ahead.

Change my mind please?

[jcims]

I think if you actually asked the people you are talking about how to be more concerned about them, they would (in the full spectrum of civility) tell you it's not necessary.

That said, there's a combination of nature and nurture at play, in this case I would suspect mostly nurture, and that's something that most people can't control. So if you want to feel bad for them, feel bad that they didn't have the benefit of the nurturing you had to value the things you do.

[oramit]

While I think you are wording things more harshly than myself, I am largely in agreement.

It is still difficult to get a vaccine in a lot of places in the country but once we get to summer and there are walk in clinics everywhere my sympathy levels for people who get sick out of vaccine stubbornness is going to be zero.

At some point you need to take personal responsibility for your own health.

[ianai]

It’s not just about saving the life of the person being vaccinated. It’s about not giving the virus anymore “fuel” to burn through. Every infection is a roll of many dice. Statistically at some point someone’s mutation will overcome even the vaccines we’ve made. If that spreads we’d be back in February of 2020.

[giantg2]

"If that spreads we’d be back in February of 2020."

You mean 'when'. There's no going back at this point.

[ianai]

You get the idea. The point is this isn’t about any individual persons life. This is about the vaccine being our only weapon that can actually stop this pandemic. If we just went on without a vaccine then we probably would see a variant arise that could live longer on surfaces or otherwise spread immensely more effectively or even more deadly. There’s nothing stopping a mutation from really killing 50-75% or more of people. The speed of evolution depends in part on the speed of replication -even in viruses. It’s a war of virus vs humanity.

[giantg2]

"actually stop this pandemic"

I think that's wishful thinking. This will be globally endemic just as the flu is. It will continue mutating in the unvaccinated population as well as the non-human carriers (like pets). Sure, if a lot of people are vaccinated, then it might slow the timeline down for when that mutation will emerge.

"There’s nothing stopping a mutation from really killing 50-75% or more of people. It’s a war of virus vs humanity."

A neverending war, as it always has been. I think the 50-75% casualty numbers are highly unlikely.

[ianai]

Last I heard, pets were still a one in a million or smaller likelihood. Doesn’t seem a likely place for a disease to bounce around long term. The unvaccinated population is the far greater problem.

[giantg2]

Probably. My point is that even 100% vaccination won't fully stop it since there are other carriers in the environment. They slaughtered a bunch of minks due to infection, so I would imagine there are other reservoirs out there (wild weasels, pet ferrets, some other species). After all, one theory is this virus got it's start though human-animal contact.

[vokep]

Its not a racially based cruel experiment probably, but it is an experiment on the mass population. The long term effects are untested and unknown, the only accurate description of it is that it is a massive experiment. Look into the 70s swine flu vaccination effort, similar fear based advertisement with lack of accountability.

When you have a system with

A) massive profit incentive (pfizer and moderna now 'suggesting' annual shots will be neccesary)

B) a populace accepting headlines without verification of what's claimed

C) no accountability if it turns out the vaccine isn't safe

You can't seriously expect that to be accepted. If any individual wants to take those chances with the belief they're doing something good for their community, great, let them take that risk. But the concept of mandating this or even socially expecting your friends and family to take part in this experiment, is absurd, and extremely bewildering to see.

This virus is somewhat more deadly and infectious than the flu or existing cold virus, but looking at the actual numbers of those lost to it, its in fact not much different than the flu. Having lost friends to the flu, I'm not sure people have an understanding of how deadly it actually is. We accept the deadliness of the flu and move on with life because the alternative would defeat much of the point of living. Same as we get in cars every day which kill thousands constantly. Having a suggestion of everyone to simply be more hygienic and socially distance is reasonable, everything else is way beyond necessity.

[runako]

> The long term effects are untested and unknown

This is a common statement about the vaccines currently being deployed. What is less common is that the expositor of this perspective has considered that the same is true of the virus itself.

Shingles afflicts people decades after they have recovered from chicken pox. I remember HIV treatments in the 90s that were thought to work until it was later discovered that the virus can hide in various organs and wreak havoc later.

Regardless of the comparisons to other pathogens, nobody today can make a credible claim about the impact a Covid infection will have on a person 20 years later.

As a society, the choice is crystal clear: vaccines that do not kill people today versus a virus that demonstrably overwhelms health systems, killing lots of people now. This is as close to an IQ test as it gets in public policy.

[vokep]

>As a society, the choice is crystal clear: vaccines that do not kill people today

The vaccines are killing an alarming number of people today.

>versus a virus that demonstrably overwhelms health systems,

This is not true. Hospitals were and have been fairly empty. Small hospitals at times have been overloaded and imagery from those exaggerated as though its a general pattern when it's not.

>killing lots of people now. This is as close to an IQ test as it gets in public policy.

The death numbers are slightly higher than that of the flu.

Take a look at historical deaths and those this year attributed to COVID. It doesn't add up to any sort of justification of the handling over the last year, nor the push for vaccination.

The IQ test is if you assume headlines are honest condensation of information or not. Every single day I see tens of articles claiming things about COVID that sound terrifying, only to turn out to be the most fearful bad-faith interpretation of the actual information brought up in the article.

[runako]

Basically everything you wrote is not supported by facts as recognized by even Covid-denying folks here in the US.

[vokep]

This perspective would seem more reasonable if it weren't based on headlines alone. The sort of headlines it's based on, when you dig into how they conclude to those headlines, often are fairly detached. There are cases of wild stories, but nothing consistent. We don't go in a panic over this sort of possibility with flu strains, when the same possibility does exist. Don't compare COVID to HIV, there isn't a good reason to. COVID is mildly more deadly then the flu, if you wouldn't be scared of dying from the flu, its unreasonable to be afraid of COVID.

[runako]

> if you wouldn't be scared of dying from the flu, its unreasonable to be afraid of COVID.

I'm actually more worried that (as in the fall), my city will have to convert our convention center to a field hospital because the local ICUs are full. And then I'm worried that I (or someone I care about) will experience one of the normal things that send people to hospitals, only there won't be capacity to see them in a timely fashion.

And honestly I'm damn sick of the necessary curbs that keep this thing from killing even more people. (It's possible to prefer society arrange itself in such a fashion that we try not to make it actively hostile to the vulnerable.)

This isn't hyperbole, it was 5 months ago. My governor is GOP and doesn't consider Covid to be real. Yet he still authorized giant field hospitals. He still won't open the governor's mansion for tours, in spite of saying all restrictions are lifted (he's not an idiot, he just plays one on TV. Nobody is really stupid enough to want unvaccinated people coming through their house all day.) He has never done any of this for the flu.

Consider yourself fortunate that this did not happen in your area. But don't pretend it didn't happen or is just the media.

And then the main thrust of what I said is this. Nobody knows what a Covid infection today will mean in 20 years. It obviously has neurological impact in some patients. Does that carry long-term import? Nobody knows. Easier to not get it, since vaccines are available and free.

[vokep]

You're sure those are ICUs full of people in critical condition due to COVID? How many went to the hospital the instant they got COVID despite lack of critical symptoms?

I don't think you're trying to be hyperbolic, I think you've been fed accurate information clothed in fear so as to lead to a bad-faith worst case interpretation of that data.

The most intelligent people I know who have the most experience in the medical field, have always suggested, and still do with the COVID vaccine, to wait a minimum of 5 years before expecting safety in something like that.

To be clear, to the response "be glad it isn't in your area", it is, I've had people directly claim to me a local hospital is overrun with patients. A friend had to goto the same hospital for unrelated reasons. Parking lot was nearly empty, calm and boring inside. Someone is lying, my friend doesn't have a trackrecord of lying, quite the opposite. The news media on the other hand, I can't say the same.

[detaro]

Hospitals here have difficulties finding space for traffic accident victims, they don't just let anyone with COVID book a space in the ICU, and never have. Seriously, be glad it isn't so bad in your area and stop trivializing it.

[runako]

> You're sure those are ICUs full of people in critical condition due to COVID?

You got me, I didn't triage each patient at all the hospitals in a major metro area. You're probably right that everyone came in at the same time for muscle cramps and sprains. The hospitals pretended to give them Covid tests but really just said they all tested positive because that's how unethical medical practitioners are these days. Further, the hospital administrators lied about census numbers in a coordinated fashion so that the census numbers would match predictions from infection data weeks prior. Then, the Covid-denying governor decided to open massive field hospitals because he thought that projecting the image of being overrun with a plague was a good strategy to help Senators from his party win reelection.

You're probably right, Occam was completely wrong.

[detaro]

> To be clear, to the response "be glad it isn't in your area", it is, I've had people directly claim to me a local hospital is overrun with patients.

This is based on first hand reports by people working in those hospitals.

[adamrezich]

your posts here hit the nail on the head with regards to something I've been trying to articulate about this situation, plus many others in the past few years:

why does everyone assume—when obviously, demonstrably massive profit incentives are on the line—that everyone in key positions of power will act 100% honestly and altruistically?

I'm not even advocating that everyone be a complete vaccine-denier or whatever, I'm just kind of shocked at the immune system response-like reaction to even skepticism of the situation, given that the aforementioned factors are at play. it's never, "well, I understand and empathize with your skepticism, but I still believe what I believe to be the truth." instead, you get attacked for even sharing mild skepticism!

how did things come to be this way?

[runako]

Skepticism is often warranted, but frequently the vaccine skeptics pair skepticism with denial of accepted facts.

So for example in this case, the skeptic asserts that the virus is not much worse than the flu. This, despite evidence that basically everyone on earth has seen that this is not the case. (Many people personally know someone who has died of Covid in the last year, despite not ever having known anyone who has died of the flu over the prior decades of their lives.)

Even prominent Covid denialist Trump a) took an experimental antibody treatment and then b) got an early dose of the vaccine after c) spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on Covid relief efforts. If someone like Trump who actually thinks it's the flu also behaves as if it's a serious disease, it makes skeptics like OP here seem much less credible.

What's interesting about the vaccine skepticism on HN is that in any biotech thread, the discussion is around how the FDA is too strict (skeptical) about approving new therapies. But now people suddenly think the FDA is too loose in approving new therapies? The irony is that the FDA is already the skeptic here (see the J&J pause, for example). Occam, again.

[adamrezich]

I'm not commenting on your third paragraph because calling Trump a "covid denialist" is too ridiculous and unrelated to what is being discussed to even begin to explore.

in your second paragraph, you use anecdotes as a means of persuasion, despite referring to "accepted facts" two sentences prior.

none of this addresses my point which is that well-reasoned skepticism is usually met with seemingly dogmatic opposition. for example, elsewhere in the threads here, it was posited that perhaps not every death that was reported as being due to covid was accurately reported as such, given that a.) it's possible to die with covid in your system without it being the thing that killed you (especially assuming the popular "asymptomatic carrier" assertion is true) and b.) that there are demonstrable profit motives for hospitals (many of which, including my local one, have been condensed into mega-corporations in the past couple of decades). this is a reasoned, reasonable cause for skepticism. yet again, to express things like this is to be deemed a "conspiracy theorist," and to have one's reputation diminished and one's statements nullified as a result.

e: re: 4th paragraph, how is one supposed to experience cognitive dissonance from holding both of the following ideas in their mind at the same time?

- the FDA is too strict when it comes to approving experimental, elective procedures and medications

- the FDA isn't strict enough when it comes to allowing several competing drugs to be emergency-use-authorized without sufficient testing, especially when for many people the choice is between taking an experimental drug and losing employment (or worse...?)

[vokep]

>why does everyone assume—when obviously, demonstrably massive profit incentives are on the line—that everyone in key positions of power will act 100% honestly and altruistically?

If I hit the nail on the head, you hammered it all the way in putting it that way. Thank you. It's really bewildering, I never expected to see something like this happen, I mean, to see a massive government/corporate push of something, sure, but to see so many just go along with it with seemingly little to no questioning of legitimacy...and when the ability to do further research with hard factual numbers you can think up your own conclusions from...its just bewildering.

[allturtles]

a) But then why be afraid of the vaccine? We have sufficient data to tell its it's much less deadly than the flu.

b) I do get the flu vaccine every year, even though it's not very efficacious. Having the flu is awful, even if it's unlikely to kill me.

c) Your notion that COVID is mildly more deadly than the flu seems wildly off base. Despite all our efforts to contain the spread (which were sufficient to drive flu cases to effectively zero this season) it has killed > 500K in the U.S., 10-20x a typical flu season.

[vokep]

a) We do not have sufficient data, and threat of sterility is a serious concern which is yet to be ruled out

b) Thats your choice. I've never opted for the flu vaccine because the lack of accountability of its efficacy and profit incentives don't make sense as far as motivating any belief that that sort of thing is designed to be good for me

c) Examine the numbers of actual confirmed deaths from COVID vs comorbidities. Yes, it still is more deadly, and I clearly say that, but its not enough more to justify how its being treated.