[reader_mode]

>This isn't a meaningful claim for 2 key reasons. There has never been a vaccine that had serious side effects that did show up shortly after vaccination[2]. The history of mRNA treatments began as an experiment in gene therapy, but has largely ben abandoned because the effects never lasted long enough. As of 2020 this is an ongoing area of research[3]. No one has figure out how to stabilize mRNA so that it has long lasting effects.

This isn't really what I'm worried about. Right now people are talking long COVID, subtle long term brain damage and it seems like mechanisms are still unknown. So who's to say that immune system reaction triggered by vaccination isn't causing same kind of hard to detect damage. I'd be much more comfortable with the vaccine if the long COVID studies included groups :

- no vaccination/hospitalised

- no vaccination/asymptomatic

- vaccination/not infected

- vaccination/infected

I'm not a risk group and have no problems with social distancing so I'm waiting for stuff like this to come out.

[titzer]

> I'm not a risk group and have no problems with social distancing so I'm waiting for stuff like this to come out.

Respectfully, I think what you're really waiting for is this thing to blow over so you don't have to take any personal risk. That's likely to be a fail, as you're just a waiting Petri dish for the live virus to infect.

All kinds of things have risk and the craven merchants of doubt are busy spreading FUD about the vaccine. It's really our only way out of this shit show, because waiting around is just prolonging it.

Or would you like to have a long drawn out conversation about the long term health effects of:

* preservatives

* artificial sweeteners

* high fructose corn syrup

* pesticides

* HPV infection

* influenza/rhinovirus infection

* sunburns

* a night of heavy drinking

Because we can absolutely have a long, drawn out, twisting conversation about all those things.

[reader_mode]

On one hand I'm being presented with avoiding long COVID sideffects as a reason to get vaccinated - on the other I get no proof that vaccination doesn't do similar harm and that it's actually protective of those effects.

I don't really mind social distancing measures untill people in the risk groups get vaccinated - all of my high risk contacts have been. So I don't get what we need to get out of, my government is already saying they will eliminate COVID measures after summer, UK style.

I'll get vaccinated at some point if I have to do it for travel or what not - right now I'm not convinced - the social arguments don't make much sense to me (variants will come up anyway, you can get infected and spread the virus even if vaccinated you're just reducing risk)

[titzer]

> On one hand I'm being presented with avoiding long COVID sideffects as a reason to get vaccinated - on the other I get no proof that vaccination doesn't do similar harm and that it's actually protective of those effects.

Well if you're feeling conflicted between these things, you're just being willfully ignorant at this point. The vaccine protects against severe COVID, hands down. Long COVID is highly correlated with severe COVID. The data is absolutely rock solid on both of those. And for these nebulous "unknown long term effects" of the anti-vaxers keep scare-mongering with, the data on that is also pretty damn good. There is no data supporting widespread negative effects from the vaccine after a year. mRNA vaccines have been in use for decades to combat influenza, and there is similarly absolutely no data to support long-term effects from their use. Even a cursory education about how mRNA vaccines actually work, how they create an immune response and don't alter your DNA should be enough to convince most Science-minded, reasonable people. The immune response induced is on the order of any other; there's nothing special about the COVID vaccine immune response! And it doesn't give you an actual viral infection. A vaccine is literally all the benefit with none of the downside. Unlike dummies who think that somehow actually getting COVID is better for immunity. No data supports that conclusion, either.

The vaccine is effective and safe. People who tell you otherwise are just manufacturing doubt and spreading FUD. They are fucking this up for the rest of us. We could have reached herd immunity with the vaccine by now, and variants would no longer be of concern.

> right now I'm not convinced

Well, I'm not inclined to believe that you can be convinced, because you didn't reason yourself into the position you're in now. No one will be reasoning you out of it. We're mostly just combating your further spreading of FUD like your apparent willingness to be a link in the chain in further spreading of the goddamn virus. It's really incredible the selfishness here.

[reader_mode]

You're just being presumptive, overreaching in conclusions and overconfident in your narrative. I've seen two studies linked recently about long COVID. Neither included vaccination as a test variable. Since these two studies were recent and newsworthy enough to link on HN I'm assuming your "There is no data supporting widespread negative effects from the vaccine after a year." boils down to there is no data because we didn't look for it. There would be no data of asymptomatic long term effects of COVID if we didn't search for that either.

I have 0 problems with people at risk of serious COVID getting vaccinated, in fact I convinced my grandparents to do it. I don't really see what it buys me as a healthy 30 something year-old with no preexisting conditions, other than likely being a day out after the shot.

>We could have reached herd immunity with the vaccine by now, and variants would no longer be of concern.

How does that compute ? I thought nobody actually believed zero COVID is possible ?

[titzer]

> there is no data because we didn't look for it.

Bigfoot is out there, and UFOs. Sorry, I shouldn't mock you. But seriously, epidemiologists, you know--Scientists--without political agendas study this problem very carefully...and do not see any widespread effects from the vaccine after a year. It's not like they forgot to look for it. If you seriously believe they are just being willfully blind to it then you're going to be off a long chain of other rationalizations that are just more hallmarks of the fact that you didn't reason yourself to where you are. But I already suspected that so I am not trying to convince you as much as tag your misinformation for passers by.

> I don't really see what it buys me

This is really the crux of matter. You only think about yourself. One, you are are far higher risk of Bad Things (tm) straight-up getting COVID, especially with Delta and Lambda coming. Again, the data is absolutely clear on that. Two, other people exist. Data shows you are more likely to be infected and more likely to infect others if you are unvaccinated. You help keep this thing festering by offering yourself up as a host. And no, vaccinated people are not doing the same. They are actually taking precautions that protect themselves and others. You're just being selfish and obstinate, and it isn't even principled, you are just worried about vague side-effects that only affect you. Worse, you put vaccinated people at risk too. If you are infected, and also being in contact with vaccinated people, you are just offering evolution more dice rolls to create a more infectious variant that can evade vaccine-induced immunity and infect the people around you. In fact, you tempt evolution to do so, because it's then a selective pressure. It's like giving your crazy neighbor who steals people's bullets and shoots them into the air randomly free ammunition by putting it on the porch with a bow on it instead of locking your shit up in your house. It's infuriatingly irresponsible.

> I thought nobody is actually believed zero COVID is possible?

I said herd immunity, not zero COVID.

herd im·mu·ni·ty, noun: resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination. "the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease but ranges from 83 to 94 percent"

Zero COVID was a possibility when infections were low. But back then, people were saying it only affected a few people and didn't even want to wear masks. Irresponsible people brought this upon us and keep it going with continued irresponsibility.

I think you're irresponsible and I'm saying it you explicitly.

[reader_mode]

>you know--Scientists--without political agendas study this problem very carefully...and do not see any widespread effects from the vaccine after a year.

?? This entire thread is me asking if there's some studies that compare long COVID sideffects with groups based on vaccination. Instead of linking these, since you're already certain (and I would very much be convinced if you can show me) you are saying "believe science" ? And I'm unscientific ?

By all means enlighten me and I'll edit my top post with links to stop spreading misinformation.

[ch4s3]

If you're so concerned, don't get the vaccine. But I'm begging you to please stop spreading baseless FUD about long term side effects. There is 0 evidence or any theory at all that could account for that.

[ch4s3]

> So who's to say that immune system reaction triggered by vaccination isn't causing same kind of hard to detect damage

This is pure conjecture base on literally nothing. I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's just baseless. The immune response from the vaccine works like any other type of vaccine immune response. The mRNA vaccines cause you own cells machinery to build virus proteins at which point it works just like any viral subunit vaccine, which have existed since 1970 and include flu vaccines, hep A and B, and few other you may have had already. Billions of people have received those types of vaccines and they don't have long term negative effects, except rarely when someone has an acute reaction right after vaccination. It is true that some people have allergic reactions (a strong an destructive immune response), but they happen within about 4 hours and symptoms usually clear up in a few days.

If the COVID vaccines had some mysterious far off long term effects, it would be the first vaccine ever to do that, and there's no reason to suspect that might be the case. You may find this nature article interesting https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00479-7, it's about general vaccine immunology.

I'm not telling you that you need to get vaccinated, but the particular concern you're raising isn't something you should be worried about.

[reader_mode]

>The immune response from the vaccine works like any other type of vaccine immune response.

You are assuming because the mechanism is the same that the effects will be as well - it's like saying "we have this black box service we sort of have an idea of what it does and if we send it X/Y/Z we know what happens, it should work the same with W too - I've been in that scenario often enough to know that's an assumption that I'd rather see the data for.

I already saw that people in my peer group reported short term side effects like headache after getting vaccination, have taken days off from work, family members complained about dizziness the day after.

It's relatively easy to do these studies along with long COVID studies, should be insignificant even compares to money that will be spent on vaccination campaigns - so why skip out on valuable data.

[ch4s3]

> You are assuming because the mechanism is the same that the effects will be as well

I'm not assuming, the whole field of immunology seems to be on board here. We know pretty well how the immune system work and how immunity develops from exposure to foreign material, it isn't black magic. There's no black box here the immune system has been well studied, and we know the inputs as well.

Vaccines are probably the safest medical intervention we have, the reactions you're describing are typical immune responses that are well studied, well understood, and temporary. No vaccine has every caused some long range reaction in the we you're describing.

> It's relatively easy to do these studies along with long COVID studies

One could, but there's absolutely no reason to bother, because immunology is a well established field and we know what happens after people receive subunit vaccines. The only moderately novel part here is the mRNA which has been tested for 30 years in vitro, in animals, and in people.

There is no mechanism for the vaccine to have some long term effect that wouldn't be apparent within a short time period give the MASSIVE number of people who have received the vaccine. Again, you don't have to take the vaccine, but the thing you are worried about isn't supported by any evidence or research it is amateur conjecture at best.

[reader_mode]

>There is no mechanism for the vaccine to have some long term effect that wouldn't be apparent within a short time period give the MASSIVE number of people who have received the vaccine.

By the same logic brain effects of long COVID on asymptotic cases is impossible aince these people don't even know they had the infection and shouldn't be studied either.

Saying that the immune system is well studied and we know what happens when we don't even know the mechanism behind the long COVID sideffects is again overreaching.

And I'm not saying my "amateur conjecture" is likely true, I'm saying given the surprising sideffects of COVID on asymptomatic cases it's not really unreasonable to check this kind of things - especially when you're vaccinating a huge % of population in one step (other required immunisations happen generationally)

[ch4s3]

> By the same logic brain effects of long COVID on asymptotic cases is impossible

No, not at all. The virus binds to ACE2 receptors on cells, where are all over you body and in your circulatory system. You could be infected and fight it off without acute symptoms and still have enough systemic damage from the virus and immune response to have lingering effects.

> when we don't even know the mechanism behind the long COVID sideffects

We do, it's cellular damage from the infection. This is well studies with the flu and various other viruses. What we don't know is why it seems to effect some people and not others, the risk factors, and we're still parsing through symptoms to put together a full picture. There's no mystery as to how this happens. When researchers say they don't know why brain fog is a symptom, it doesn't mean they have no clue how it happens.

> I'm saying given the surprising sideffects of COVID on asymptomatic cases it's not really unreasonable to check this kind of things

It isn't surprising though. Plenty of viruses can cause lingering systemic damage without sever acute symptoms. The long covid cases were appearing as early as late April 2020 in the US, and clearly wen't caused by the vaccines that weren't available for a year. This whole what if scenario is just baseless FUD.