To me the larger issue beyond any comparisons of risk profiles is the ethical question.
If a government through its agencies coerces people to get a medical treatment that harms them in any way they are responsible for that harm. Even if vaccinations are unquestionably a net benefit to everyone, the coercion makes the whole thing a serious breach of medical ethics. "First do no harm".
The "public health" (called "Volksgesundheit" ca. 1935) crowd of course have no such ethics and their goals often have conflicting aims with medicine. They gladly trade a few individuals' well-being for a greater good. Usually the diseases are so bad that this sort of approach is at least understandable (see damage from the first few iterations of polio or smallpox vaccines). But with covid they have completely lost many people. If they had just refrained from coercion (as with flu vaccines) everything would be just fine.
Mandatory vaccination has been in place for a long time, and nobody complained - not least because they understood it was for their own benefit, if not for the greater good.
The question arises, why was Covid vaccination such a problem for a significant vocal minority? You mention 'do no harm', but I really don't think that is the root of it.
Because you can't introduce new technology without testing. Most people just took the vaccine on faith. In fact I'd say the faith in the vaccine was higher than any faith I have seen in my life.
I fear we may have rushed things for younger age groups. There was little space for debate. It was an uncomfortable time, but I get the sense intellectual debate is returning.
There was so little space for debate that the Biden administration attempted to force employers to mandate either the vaccine, or routine testing at the employee's expense, for most working American adults.
If this move hadn't been struck down by the Supreme Court, you can bet some version of this restriction would still be in place and would be defended by many.
I think we rushed in the sense that this was a very accelerated vaccine program, but whether the rush was optimal (on a per age-group basis) will depend on what the data comes to show.
It's true that most people didn't really want to debate covid then, which is par-for-the-course on political issues. I think though in our post-mortem for covid the my curiosity why we got so left/right political over an illness. I'd love to have that behind us.
Why the hell do we think scientific research needs a so called "debate". Are we trying to become school valedictorians?
What is needed is peer review, not debate. Debate is simply a euphemism for validation seeking for confirmation bias on random social forums.
If there was any problem with the peer review, there is cause for complaints. Are we going to hold a debate on whether the proof of fermat's last theorem is actually correct now?
Nah, it's not the job of science to tell people what to do. We are not going to debate the correctedness of a theorem, but we need debates to justify lockdowns because of the theorem
How do you distinguish moving goalposts from the more charitable reading of "Hey, this is a novel virus and so our guidelines will have to change as we find out more"
I sure remember when the guidelines were that COVID wasn't transmissible through aerosol, only droplets. Then it was revised to include aerosol. Mask warnings also evolved from "not that effective" to "extremely effective". But isn't all of this explainable charitably without invoking suppression?
I would argue because no charity was given to opinions contrary to what Dr. Fauci and the NIH declaired as truth. Perhaps most infamous is Dr. Collins asking for a takedown of the Great Berington declaration. The fact that so little was certain early on about COVID should have been a reason to allow physicians and scientists to discuss and debate policy without fear of having their careers destroyed. Now that we are further out from the pandemic cooler heads will prevail but I fear the damage to the reputation of the health authorities in the US will take a long time to recover.
“Based on other viruses, we believe masking helps reduce the risk of transmission.”
“Based on initial clinical data we believe vaccination will reduce or possibly eliminate the risk you transmitting the virus to others”
What I’m guessing happened is they thought not being confident in their answer would cause people to not comply.
But the #1 rule of communication (I did some company PR work) is never lie, even by omission. If you lie you’ll eventually get caught and people will never believe you in the future.
> I sure remember when the guidelines were that COVID wasn't transmissible through aerosol, only droplets. Then it was revised to include aerosol. Mask warnings also evolved from "not that effective" to "extremely effective".
And yet the authorities and all the big tech bros were quick to censor anyone who disagreed with the blatant false narratives. Even the WHO took a YEAR to admit to aerosol contamination after the pandemic was everywhere.
There was a messaging lag between countries. You could discern pretty clearly what was doing to happen from whatever happened in Israel as they were roughly half a year ahead and almost simultaneously vaccinated everyone. Based on what happened there with both the initial vaccine and the boosters, you could tell that your local politicians, media and experts where lying and or obfuscating and misrepresenting facts.
> “Hey, this is a novel virus and so our guidelines will have to change as we find out more"
Gee that’s not what I heard at all, what I heard was ‘this is science, and anyone who disagrees or doubts is an idiot and deserves to die and is responsible for killing grandma’
*edit
Oh look here’s the comment where anyone who doubts or disagrees is an idiot:
Moving goal posts are obvious. They show up with an initial over commit like say, “you don’t need masks” or “the vaccine is sterilizing” that is obviously wrong at the time it occurs, but only on a valid limited data set. This followed by a bunch of backpedaling as that position becomes more and more indefensible as the data becomes overwhelming.
Also, why the hell do we think scientific research needs a so called "debate". Are we trying to become school valedictorians?
What is needed is peer review, not debate. Debate is simply a euphemism for validation seeking for confirmation bias on random social forums.
If there was any problem with the peer review, there is cause for complaints. Are we going to hold a debate on whether the proof of fermat's last theorem is actually correct now?
> Among men under 40, there were an estimated four extra cases of myocarditis associated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 14 extra cases with the first dose of the Moderna vaccine for every 1 million men vaccinated. That risk rose with the second dose for all three vaccines studied and was highest for Moderna's, which had an additional 97 myocarditis cases per 1 million. For unvaccinated men under 40 with COVID-19, there were 16 additional myocarditis cases per million.
which shows that the Moderna second dose is riskier than infection for men under 40? I have to admit I've been really disappointed by the way people have been minimising this. Part of that is being in that group of men < 40 myself (it has always been stratified by age and sex), another part of it is I think we need to be as transparent as possible about all risks in medicine as opposed to giving fuel (and good arguments) that information is being suppressed or charitably ignored because people are panicking.
The chance of healthy young males dying from Covid is close to zero and not 0.3%. I recently had Covid, less than 6 months after the booster and I don’t think it could have been worse than it was. The third shot measurably impacted my fitness metrics, according do my Apple Watch (sharp decline in VO2max, which took months to recover and even pre Covid it was 3 points off)
> 1. Myocarditis rate is much higher post infection than post vaccination by about 2X
Based on which data since reporting of adverse events after vaccination is constantly suppressed by medical professionals? (and reporting of adverse events is anyway very low in the first place)
> 2. Myocarditis rate post vaccination is 0.02 % . Covid FATALITY rate is 0.3%. Yet we are expected to have "debates" about it
Please explain the excess deaths around the globe right now then, if you believe in such numbers.
Open discussion was never acceptable, even here on HN. I was quickly downvoted for saying anything against masking and vaccinations. Not even objecting, mere questions elicited this reaction.
> A study ... suggested it may be driven by an inflammatory response associated with SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, which the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines coax the body to produce. The group reported finding certain antibodies in both vaccine-induced myocarditis patients and patients with severe COVID-19, which itself can cause myocarditis.
If those who had this reaction to the vaccine gotten COVID without the vaccine, would it not be likely that they would see the same inflammation response and the same heart damage? If that were the case, receiving the vaccine still seems like a reasonable choice.
Consider the magnitude of the immune response. In someone with pre-existing immunity the virus may replicate relatively little before being killed. Compare this to getting the vaccine, where your body will be flooded with spike protein whether you have previous immunity or not.
Exactly. And the most plausible explanation for the large variation in number of VAERS reports by lot number is that poor quality control meant some lots were "hot" and led to excessive spike protein production.
Readit News
If a government through its agencies coerces people to get a medical treatment that harms them in any way they are responsible for that harm. Even if vaccinations are unquestionably a net benefit to everyone, the coercion makes the whole thing a serious breach of medical ethics. "First do no harm".
The "public health" (called "Volksgesundheit" ca. 1935) crowd of course have no such ethics and their goals often have conflicting aims with medicine. They gladly trade a few individuals' well-being for a greater good. Usually the diseases are so bad that this sort of approach is at least understandable (see damage from the first few iterations of polio or smallpox vaccines). But with covid they have completely lost many people. If they had just refrained from coercion (as with flu vaccines) everything would be just fine.
The question arises, why was Covid vaccination such a problem for a significant vocal minority? You mention 'do no harm', but I really don't think that is the root of it.
Mandatory vaccination for deadly diseases like measles and the mumps. COVID is not deadly for the young.
If this move hadn't been struck down by the Supreme Court, you can bet some version of this restriction would still be in place and would be defended by many.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/13/1072165393/supreme-court-bloc...
It's true that most people didn't really want to debate covid then, which is par-for-the-course on political issues. I think though in our post-mortem for covid the my curiosity why we got so left/right political over an illness. I'd love to have that behind us.
What is needed is peer review, not debate. Debate is simply a euphemism for validation seeking for confirmation bias on random social forums.
If there was any problem with the peer review, there is cause for complaints. Are we going to hold a debate on whether the proof of fermat's last theorem is actually correct now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
The inconsistency and the blatant suppression of dissenting viewpoints does not help either.
I sure remember when the guidelines were that COVID wasn't transmissible through aerosol, only droplets. Then it was revised to include aerosol. Mask warnings also evolved from "not that effective" to "extremely effective". But isn't all of this explainable charitably without invoking suppression?
[1] https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/23/at-a-time-when-the-u-s-n...
The right way to communicate is say:
“Based on other viruses, we believe masking helps reduce the risk of transmission.”
“Based on initial clinical data we believe vaccination will reduce or possibly eliminate the risk you transmitting the virus to others”
What I’m guessing happened is they thought not being confident in their answer would cause people to not comply.
But the #1 rule of communication (I did some company PR work) is never lie, even by omission. If you lie you’ll eventually get caught and people will never believe you in the future.
And yet the authorities and all the big tech bros were quick to censor anyone who disagreed with the blatant false narratives. Even the WHO took a YEAR to admit to aerosol contamination after the pandemic was everywhere.
Gee that’s not what I heard at all, what I heard was ‘this is science, and anyone who disagrees or doubts is an idiot and deserves to die and is responsible for killing grandma’
*edit
Oh look here’s the comment where anyone who doubts or disagrees is an idiot:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33258738
I guess we should applaud them for not celebrating the death of anyone who doubts.
1. Myocarditis rate is much higher post infection than post vaccination by about 2X
2. Myocarditis rate post vaccination is 0.02 % . Covid FATALITY rate is 0.3%. Yet we are expected to have "debates" about it
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-...
Also, why the hell do we think scientific research needs a so called "debate". Are we trying to become school valedictorians? What is needed is peer review, not debate. Debate is simply a euphemism for validation seeking for confirmation bias on random social forums.
If there was any problem with the peer review, there is cause for complaints. Are we going to hold a debate on whether the proof of fermat's last theorem is actually correct now?
> Among men under 40, there were an estimated four extra cases of myocarditis associated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 14 extra cases with the first dose of the Moderna vaccine for every 1 million men vaccinated. That risk rose with the second dose for all three vaccines studied and was highest for Moderna's, which had an additional 97 myocarditis cases per 1 million. For unvaccinated men under 40 with COVID-19, there were 16 additional myocarditis cases per million.
which shows that the Moderna second dose is riskier than infection for men under 40? I have to admit I've been really disappointed by the way people have been minimising this. Part of that is being in that group of men < 40 myself (it has always been stratified by age and sex), another part of it is I think we need to be as transparent as possible about all risks in medicine as opposed to giving fuel (and good arguments) that information is being suppressed or charitably ignored because people are panicking.
Based on which data since reporting of adverse events after vaccination is constantly suppressed by medical professionals? (and reporting of adverse events is anyway very low in the first place)
> 2. Myocarditis rate post vaccination is 0.02 % . Covid FATALITY rate is 0.3%. Yet we are expected to have "debates" about it
Please explain the excess deaths around the globe right now then, if you believe in such numbers.
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If those who had this reaction to the vaccine gotten COVID without the vaccine, would it not be likely that they would see the same inflammation response and the same heart damage? If that were the case, receiving the vaccine still seems like a reasonable choice.
No matter how right you were to be skeptical, they will never stop calling you names for not doing as they say.
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