[forgingahead]

There is a large continent of space, ideas, and legitimate reasons between "trust everything government/big pharma seems to have panicked agreement on" and "the government is trying to microchip me".

It's important to have that clear-headed discussion, not this elite arrogance that discussion and arguing the points is somehow bad for discourse or society.

People are rightfully skeptical of new pharmaceuticals based on new technology with zero long-term studies being not just approved and being sold, but also being required for basic activities in society like earning a living.

There is definitely an argument to be made about not being locked down forever, and finding a way forward despite endemic COVID. But vaccine passports, and accusations that anyone with a hint of hesitation is "anti-vaxx", is a terrible way to engage and broaden the tent so all concerns are heard and addressed.

[nemothekid]

> There is a large continent of space, ideas, and legitimate reasons between "trust everything government/big pharma seems to have panicked agreement on" and "the government is trying to microchip me".

This is lip service to make it seem like vaccine hesitant individuals have a legitimate argument when they actually don’t. It’s impossible to have a clear-headed discussion when the other side’s argument pretty much comes down to gut feel at best and government conspiracy at worst. If you are (oddly) skeptical of MRNA technology, then the J&J vaccine exists and is also free.

There are well over 100MM shots administered since April and the worst side effect as been a dozen blood clots in women who had a pre-existing condition that caused them. Anyone who tells you they aren’t safe is trying to sell you a bridge. If you want to argue against hard data, then you must have an actual data-backed argument or we can just assume you aren’t a serious person.

[dolni]

> There are well over 100MM shots administered since April and the worst side effect as been a dozen blood clots in women who had a pre-existing condition that caused them.

Thalidomide was perfectly safe, too, until kids started being born without arms and legs. Oops.

[nemothekid]

Thalidomide never got fda approval. What are you talking about? Why bring it up?

[dolni]

Neither did any of the vaccines before people started getting them.

What are _you_ talking about?

[nemothekid]

1. Thalomide, according to Wikipedia, had fewer doses administrated than 100m

2. No regulatory body in America ever claimed it was safe to use before the side effects were discovered.

I don’t see how the comparison is apt. The FDA doesn’t have a track record being too cavalier when it comes to public health so I don’t understand why you would bring up an example of the FDA doing their job to imply they aren’t doing their job

[dolni]

> No regulatory body in America ever claimed it was safe to use before the side effects were discovered.

US regulatory bodies said that the COVID vaccines were safe before blood clotting and myocarditis were discovered.

> The FDA doesn’t have a track record being too cavalier when it comes to public health so I don’t understand why you would bring up an example of the FDA doing their job to imply they aren’t doing their job

You're a little too hung up on "The FDA". "The FDA" isn't a person. "The FDA" of 50 years ago isn't "The FDA" of today.

[forgingahead]

You don't seem like you've had much (if any) discussion with folks who are concerned about the vaccine.

I would suggest not taking what you see on TV and the internet as gospel and engage with a few folks in real life.

There are certainly people who you won't be able to have a discussion with, but you're not being that open-minded either by shutting down everything by declaring "they don't have a legitimate argument".

*Edit: The myocarditis issue is real. Please don't handwave away legitimate concerns because of lack of understanding and compassion.

[nemothekid]

> There are certainly people who you won't be able to have a discussion with, but you're not being that open-minded either by shutting down everything by declaring "they don't have a legitimate argument".

Again you are playing lip service. If there are legitimate arguments you would list them. Either you don’t know them and you are carrying water for charlatans or they don’t exist. This kind of argument would not be tolerated in any other field of science. Can you imagine Einstein saying “The speed of light is constant for all observers but you need to talk to these people, who I won’t tell you who they are, to figure out why?”

I’ve had these discussions before and it almost always turns out the “blessed” arguments are just wordier statements of constantly debunked talking points

[s1artibartfast]

On the medical side, the legitimate arguments I see is:

1) Concern over long term effects which we have no data on (legitimate but low probability in my estimation)

2) Natural immunity is slightly less effective than the vaccine against alpha variants, but still very robust. These people should therefore be exempt from the vaccine.

---

On the policy side, the legitimate arguments/discussions I see are:

3) We should strive for a society where consent is obtained by changing minds, not force, even if this is extremely difficult.

4) Slippery slope concern- There is no hard limit or consensus on when public health outweighs bodily autonomy and other considerations.

5) Who owns the responsibility to ensure personal safety. (should the obligation fall on people who don't want to catch covid to avoid public spaces and take defensive action, or fall on people who could be spreaders in the public spaces)

---

If it helps to have a productive discussion, I declare my tribe as vaccinated and encouraging others to get the vaccine.

[nemothekid]

1) Is the only fair argument in which vaccine pushers would have egg on their faces. You need to balance this argument against (1) the predicted lives saved by the vaccine and (2) the documented long term effects of the vaccine. This argument cannot be considered in the vacuum. Let's say X number of people die due to long term effects of the vaccine. We know historically this number is low, but we cannot be certain. However we do know the cost of inaction last year cost nearly 500,000 excess deaths. Should we allow another 500,000 to die in order to do further testing of an otherwise safe vaccine? How many people, in your opinion, should suffer today until there is enough testing for you?

2) This is a public policy problem. Let's say you allow this; then everyone, in lieu of getting an actual vaccine will just claim they had COVID already.

3) No one is getting forced to take the vaccine. Vaccine mandates just mean you can be prevented from entering certain federal buildings until you are vaccinated. This is not a new power - children have been mandated to get vaccines to enter public schooling. If you don't want to get a vaccine, then society has kindly asked you to not step on a plane.

4.) This is only a slippery slope to people born after the time where vaccines have pretty much eradicated most contagious diseases. Previous vaccine mandates for polio and chickpox did not lead the USG into forcibly inoculating children with super soldier serum. It's a slippery slope to you because you weren't around that last time this power was enforced.

5.) Following this logic - should the government be banned for giving you a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt? Should the government allow the sale of cars without airbags? After all if I drive safe why should I pay extra for seatbelts and airbags? The short answer is - we do these things because, you living in a society, can cause negative externalities. If you drive a car without seatbelts and airbags you cause not only danger to your passengers, but also to the emergency services system that has to pry you from your car. You are only "free" from your responsibility as long as you pledge to not visit a hospital and operate on yourself. Otherwise it's simply unfair that someone who could have gotten vaccinated should occupy an ICU bed from someone who cancer. The second you are in the ICU, your "responsible" decision now must fall on nurses, doctors and other patients.

Again, I want to stress, I do not think these are very strong or well-researched arguments against the vaccines at all. I hope I have answered your arguments non-combatively, but I want to point out I do not think these are strong or even well intentioned arguments now that we are more than a year into this pandemic. Only one of your arguments had to do with actual safety and public policy, and the rest I believe came down to your personal opinion of how things should be done. I'm sure you are a smart individual, and again I don't mean this in combative manner but I'm going to trust the people who have been studying this for years. Going back to my original comment, most arguments against the vaccine are "gut-feel" at best and not backed by any actual data.

[s1artibartfast]

1) I fully agree that there is a tradeoff between predicted deaths and risk from vaccine. I am fine with any number of people dying because they self selected to not take the vaccine, be it 500k or 5 million. I respect their right to choose even if I don't agree with it. The debate thickens when you talk about future deaths of people who selected to get a vaccine, but died from breakthrough cases. Vaccination breakthrough cases are very rare at <0.1% of total cases[1], and vaccination still confers significant benefit against severe cases or death. For sake of argument, I would accept an annual deaths of 50K (similar to the flu) among the vaccinated before further government action is considered. I think this range is achievable given we had 500k deaths before the vaccine was widely available. We now have 160 million Americans self selected to vaccinate and this number is still climbing, The CDC also estimates that 100+ million Ammericans have already been infected.

2) I split the topics into scientific 1 & 2 vs political 3-5, and think this is more a question of science. If natural immunity is reasonably close to vaccination immunity, I think they should be treated the same (whatever that may be). This is the question that science can answer. For your implementation concern, positive covid test or antibody test would be a simple way to administer an equivalent immunity pass.

Questions 3-5 are political because they can not be answered by science or data. Science can inform the decision, but they come down to questions of values, morality, ect.

3) I agree nobody is being tied down and given a shot, and only wackos are advocating this. There is a scale for how hard society can incentivize or punish people until they get a vaccine. I personally think society has done a terrible job of informing people to change their mind, and skipped straight to the punishments, and am deeply uncomfortable with this.

4) I agree that past vaccinations were largely a success via eradication. I have not seen a success criteria stated for the covid pandemic, as eradication is unlikely. At what point will we stop ratcheting up control mechanisms? X deaths per year, sustainable hospital capacity of Y? Is any sacrifice warranted to prevent 1 death?

5) Again, this is political question, and reasonable can and do have different opinions on how much personal risk you can take on, and when the government should protect you from yourself. You brought up seatbelts, going on somewhat of a tangent, the things you described are not true negative externalities in the technical sense. They are cost society chooses to pay, and could simply choose not to. I could give a beggar $5 but that isn't an externality. If I make a rule that I will give every beggar I see $5, it still isn't an externality. If the beggar on the corner lowers my property value, that IS a negative externality because it is imposed on me and I have no control or choice. You can say that seatbelts and vaccines both reduce the cost to the social safety net. Lots of things would reduce costs, and we can choose to to pay them, or not, opposed to controlling people. I personally love seatbelts, but think that tickets for adults are unreasonable (different story for minors in their care, ect).

>I don't mean this in combative manner but I'm going to trust the people who have been studying this for years. Going back to my original comment, most arguments against the vaccine are "gut-feel" at best and not backed by any actual data.

With the exception of the first two, these arguments aren't backed by data because they aren't questions that can be answered by data. They are simply matters of opinion, and I think we would all be best served if we acknowledge this. At the end of the day, science can conclude that universal vaccination would reduce deaths, or save $X, but it cant answer question on what public policy should be. This will be different based a multitude of values in addition to deaths and money.

Opinions you disagree with (assuming they are not based on incorrect data) are not wrong, just different.

https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrou...