[mostertoaster]

How come?

There is a higher risk to dying from a covid infection (at least with delta) than from the vaccine as far as we can see in the short term.

But there is still a risk from the vaccine.

If there was a train hurtling down the tracks about to kill five people many think they’d be able to push the switch to make it only kill one different person, yet I wouldn’t be able to do even that let alone the more intense situations from that scenario.

Thinking of people as numbers is what allows for someone to think it is ok to coerce people into getting vaccines.

[tomjakubowski]

A person susceptible to heart conditions from the vaccine would probably also be susceptible to the same (or worse) from the disease itself. Your hapless groups of people on the tracks, the five and the one, aren't independent. It may well be flipping the switch only saves lives.

[orangebeet]

I am absolutely pro vaccine despite my heart problems, but this kind of argumentation basically means that regardless of how bad the vaccine is, it gets away free because "covid would probably be worse".

[gitgrump]

That's kind of how relative risk works. I mean, no COVID would be nice, but we left that world behind two years ago. What do you mean "get away free" anyway? There's no morality here. The vaccine didn't "do" anything wrong. It is either efficacious or it isn't, and the side effects are either worth it or they aren't. From what we can tell, the risk of heart problems from the vaccine is so much lower than from COVID. What more would you like people to do?

[gregoryl]

Covid is dramatically, consistently and provably worse.

Its not even in the same ballpark.

[spurgu]

Does not apply to kids, for example.

Specifically when it comes to myocarditis (which is even an issue for <40 apparently): https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...

[rsfern]

The preprint discussed in that post specifically calls out that there weren’t enough myocarditis events in the 13-17 age group to reliably estimate the relative risk, so I don’t see where that conclusion is coming from

Also, note the higher relative risk only applies to the full moderna dose

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v...

[spurgu]

There have been similar reports from Ontario and some country I can't recall at the moment.

[adamrezich]

really? I know many people who "got omicron" shortly after Christmas... by which I mean, they self-tested daily and eventually the test came up positive, with symptoms ranging from literally nonexistent to that of the mildest of colds—a far cry from my mom's ten-day absolute misery (and very real fear for her life given her immunosuppressed state) back in early 2020 that I personally witnessed & took care of her during. if that's what we're dealing with now, I don't see any reason why someone like myself who hasn't taken any of these vaccines or boosters or whatever to start doing so now. what part of my own personal risk assessment here is misguided?

[pcwalton]

Because the unvaccinated death rate from COVID is 13x higher than the vaccinated death rate in the US. It's simple. Get vaccinated.

[megous]

How this does help anyone in particular to decide for themselves, unless you include some other factors like pre-existing conditions, sex, or age to the comparison?

People are not averages of the whole population. We would not need doctors if medical advice was this simple.

[adamrezich]

what compels you to phrase it as a command rather than a suggestion or recommendation? given that you lack authority over me, I don't appreciate it.

[pcwalton]

The trolley problem analogy breaks down when you consider that Covid is an infectious disease. Getting vaccinated doesn't just protect you; it protects everyone else you might have spread the disease to.

[rastignack]

The effectiveness against infection is limited, and omicron mainly spreads in vaccinated populations in Denmark, Island and the UK

[pcwalton]

Both technically true statements (though I think you mean Iceland), but presented in a completely misleading way. Yes, breakthrough infections exist and nothing is 100%; you should still get the vaccine, obviously. Yes, when the population is highly vaccinated, a lot of infections will be in the vaccinated; that's just how denominators work.

[gregoryl]

I'll bite. Why is it not ok to coerce people into getting vaccines? Is it specifically the covid vaccine you object to, or all vaccines?

[mostertoaster]

Well what if there is a side effect that kills them? What if that person already got covid and was barely affected by it?

Forcing them to get the vaccine is crazy, especially when it doesn’t behave how the other vaccines do, and vaccinated people are both getting it and spreading it, albeit with far less severe symptoms than the unvaccinated person on average.

I think vaccines are amazing, these new covid ones, look to be reducing the symptoms of covid.

The idea of forcing it on folks when even vaccinated people are spreading it is absurd.

[thrashh]

I wouldn’t be surprised if vaccinated people go out more because they feel safer. I went on a cross-US road trip right after I got my vaccine and now I’ve been to 4 different countries.

I wouldn’t have done any of that if I wasn’t vaccinated.

[robbedpeter]

Medical advice should be provided by doctors, not politicians, activists, or bureacrats. Doctors have specific ethical training and guidelines by which they're qualified to make judgments about safety and relative risks for individuals.

Consider that polio vaccination was never framed and exploited by political parties playing despicable red vs blue games with the public. The results, driven by information campaigns devoid of partisan politics, were a nearly universal state of vaccination, driving the disease more or less extinct. Trust in doctors and medical institutions was high and relatively untrammeled by partisan games.

The second that coronavirus vaccination became a political shibboleth for team blue, the current state of vaccine resistance became inevitable. Both parties are responsible for a lot of unnecessary death and suffering because of their willingness to never let a good crisis go to waste.

Throw in the general decline and corruption of institutions, lack of trust in public health agencies and even doctors in general, and you've got a mess of hyperpartisan unvaccinated conservative folks being shrieked at by the clueless but vaccinated team blue, and nobody credible or trusted able to bring the situation back to something resembling sanity.