[briefcomment]

> B. If one doesn’t take the vaccine, one’s chances of dying or being disabled for years or permanently are much higher.

But for a young person with no co-morbidities, that chance is still basically 0%.

> C. If one doesn’t take the vaccine there is a significant chance they give the virus to someone else, killing them.

Even if others have taken the vaccine themselves? Either that particular risk is negligible if the vaccine works, or the vaccine doesn't work.

[estebank]

>> B. If one doesn’t take the vaccine, one’s chances of dying or being disabled for years or permanently are much higher.

>But for a young person with no co-morbidities, that chance is still basically 0%.

According to table "COVID-19 Fatality Rate by AGE:" at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se..., the mortality rate for everyone under 40 years of age is 0.2%. That "is basically 0", but means that for every 1000 people infected, 2 will die. Roughly half of the US is under 40 years old (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the...). If no-one had gotten vaccinated, you would expect to see 320,000 deaths in that age group. According to https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Se..., we've had 286,000 deaths so far in that age group.

>> C. If one doesn’t take the vaccine there is a significant chance they give the virus to someone else, killing them.

> Even if others have taken the vaccine themselves? Either that particular risk is negligible if the vaccine works, or the vaccine doesn't work.

You're forgetting the number 1 law of large numbers. Things that have a very low chance of probability happen all the time at scale. The vaccine reduces the likelihood of individuals dying by orders of magnitude, and as a group it is a great tool to reduce the R0 under 1, but contagion and transmition is still possible, and every new infection we are rolling the dice on getting "lucky" with a new vaccine resistant variant.

[briefcomment]

From your cdc link, it looks like less than 10k people have died in the under 40 age bracket. Am I looking at the right data?

Also, are you aware you can be exposed to the virus and not be infected?

[estebank]

> From your cdc link, it looks like less than 10k people have died in the under 40 age bracket. Am I looking at the right data?

I added every age group between 0 and 39, but took the incorrect column (Deaths from all causes, which is obviously incorrect), which puts me off by an order of magnitude.

> Also, are you aware you can be exposed to the virus and not be infected?

That is true, like with any virus it is a statistics game. It is also true that the Delta variant is 1000x more virulent/transmissible, so likelihood of infection is much higher today than a year ago.

[mint2]

And since being vaccinated would have saved most of those 10k people and like a small handful have died from all of the vaccines across all age groups, and a small handful is orders of magnitude smaller than 10k. It does seem like a vaccine mandate even for under 40s is the smart thing to do.

That doesn’t even get into the benefit of preventing long Covid and being able to open the economy faster with fewer restrictions

[briefcomment]

And since we all know cholesterol and saturated fats are killers, we should ban butter and institute that everyone should have at least a tablespoon each of canola and sunflower oil a day. Except the science has now reversed to the point that polyunsaturated fats are being implicated as likely causes of obesity and metabolic disease.

You statement sounds far more confident than what the science would currently permit.

[Overton-Window]

> You're forgetting the number 1 law of large numbers. Things that have a very low chance of probability happen all the time at scale.

Severe reactions to experimental vaccines for example?

[gradys]

On the last point:

1) The vaccine isn't perfect, and herd immunity nonlinearly reduces the risk of everyone including the vaccinated from getting it.

2) Unvaccinated people, who make up the vast majority of the cases, create an environment for the virus to evolve within, possibly mutating into a form that is more dangerous to everyone, including the vaccinated

[incrudible]

> The vaccine isn't perfect, and herd immunity nonlinearly reduces the risk of everyone including the vaccinated from getting it.

I would argue that the data now shows that herd immunity is not achievable with any vaccination rate. The vaccines just don't work that way, breakthrough infections are rampant.

> Unvaccinated people, who make up the vast majority of the cases, create an environment for the virus to evolve within, possibly mutating into a form that is more dangerous to everyone, including the vaccinated.

This is speculative. Vaccination-induced immunity is clearly not perfect, at the same it puts selection pressure on the virus. Natural immunity, going by reinfection rates, appears to be much stronger. I would speculate that in a population where 70% are vaccinated, where the amount of infections among the vaccinated is roughly the same, the virus is much more likely to mutate in the vaccinated individuals.

[sudosysgen]

Only for you. The argument above was from civic responsibility, by being in crowded environments while unvaccinated you risk the lives of others.

Also, the chance of being disabled for a long while if you are young without comorbidity is far from 0%. It is quite significant, certainly above 0.5%.

[mrhands69]

What is the risk for people who are vaccinated? There should be some level of personal responsibility at this point. Everyone has had a chance to get the vaccine.

[estebank]

Not everyone can take the vaccine. Which is why everyone that can, should, for everyone's sake.

[mrhands69]

What's the percentage of the population in the United States that can't get vaccinated for health reasons?

[estebank]

People with allergies and pregnant can get the vaccine for the most part, but because I can't find relevant numbers, lets say (incorrectly) that anyone with a food allergy can't get the vaccines: that'd be 32 million people (https://www.aafa.org/allergy-facts/).

~60 million are <12 years of age, which means that they aren't eligible for the vaccine at this time, and I've seen reports that it is unlikely we'll have vaccines for the youngest among us. So 82% of the population is the absolute most we can vaccinate.

With the demographic numbers and the (admittedly terrible proxy of) allergy numbers, 86 million people wouldn't be vaccinated (~25%). With a 0.2% percent fatality rate, we are talking about 170,000 deaths if all of them get infected.

[makomk]

As I understand it, pretty much the only people who aren't eligible for vaccination in the US are those who've had an allergic reaction to a previous dose of the vaccine or one of its ingredients specifically and under-12s, though there are some additional observation requirements for people with a history of certain other allergic reactions. The former is quite a small group and children are at really low risk: https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-only-0-005-of-covid-infe...

[briefcomment]

Ah yes, as soon as the world stops cultivating peanuts to accommodate my lethal (and heritable) peanut allergy. It should be a no brainer after all, with the nearly infinite other foods we have available as substitutes.

[estebank]

Do you feel like prevalent labeling and stringent segregation policies in food handling to accommodate you aren't equivalent? And if someone's dish sends you into anaphylaxis at a dinner party, the host won't be going "Shouldn't have come then! I refuse to live in peanut-fear!".

[swader999]

A reasonable court would put duty on the guest to inform the host of known allergies.

[joshuamorton]

There are some people for whom the vaccine will not be effective (those who are already immunocompromised for example, or people with certain allergies to vaccine ingredients).

> But for a young person with no co-morbidities, that chance is still basically 0%.

Having long term side effects doesn't round to zero, even for young healthy people. And vaccine side effects do.

[makomk]

Historically speaking, countries have refrained from forcing even medical workers and people caring for the elderly to get flu vaccines, even though this argument - that there are some people for whom the vaccine will not be effective - is even more true of that (in fact, as I understand it some studies suggest the flu vaccine might be basically ineffective at preventing serious complications and death in those at risk of them, leaving its ability to stop people from being infected and spreading it as the only way to reduce risk). As far as I can tell, the only reason to treat Covid differently basically boils down to partisan politics...

[sudosysgen]

Of course not. Most countries have mandated vaccines for HCW.

The reason the flu vaccine isn't one of them is because it's not that effective to begin with and you have to take it every year. It's not effective enough to really stop an epidemic, so instead vaccinating patients is the main thrust instead of HCW, because the overall impact will be fairly low.

[mahogany]

> As far as I can tell, the only reason to treat Covid differently basically boils down to partisan politics...

A difference is that COVID is much deadlier, no?

[mrhands69]

People can essentially get "long-covid" from the vaccine. Unfortunately, people are afraid to talk about it for fear of being labeled an antivax-er.

[joshuamorton]

You'll, of course, cite a source?

There aren't actually any virus particles in the mRNA vaccines, so there's no biological mechanism for that to happen.

[mrhands69]

I can get a source in a bit. IIRC it was the spike protein that causes some (still unknown) response from the human body. The mRNA vaccine elicit a response from the immune system to reproduce the spike protein.

[sudosysgen]

We have no idea that the spike protein causes long covid. It's much more likely that damage from the viral infection and immune response is at least an equal cause.

Beyond that, the virus causes orders of magnitude more spike protein response, so even if that was true, which it probably isn't, then it is still very unlikely that the vaccine could cause long-covid.

Also, all vaccines introduce spike proteins in the body, not just mRNA vaccines.

[d_silin]

Source for above:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201217154046.h...

Relevant part "The spike proteins alone can cause brain fog". And vaccines do produce viral proteins as intended.

[incrudible]

> Having long term side effects doesn't round to zero, even for young healthy people. And vaccine side effects do.

I'm hesitant to just accept this as a fact. Vaccinations can cause very strong immune reactions in young adults that would otherwise likely suffer mild or asymptomatic infections. There are many surveys that query for a basket of sometimes unspecific symptoms such as "fatigue" or "brain fog" as a follow-up of a COVID infection. I'm missing that volume of surveys in the follow-up for vaccinations.