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Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

lore.kernel.org

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Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#431

Post by mywittyname »

markkanof wrote: post #330
SECProto wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the viewpoint of a healthy young person, the risk/reward ratio of taking a vaccine is bad. Absolutely false. The disease can and does have severe and sometimes long-lasting impacts on young healthy people. The mRNA vaccines don't have any impact worse than a sore arm. And we aren't getting to a herd immunity level of vaccination if young people are unvaccinated.

But why are we only considering vaccination with regards to herd immunity. Shouldn't we also be including natural immunity from previous covid infection?

It has been demonstrated that repeated infections are possible and may be common. And there are a large number of variants in the wild that are not hindered by immune systems previously exposed to other variants. Allowing the virus to spread in populations causes even more variants to emerge.

Even vaccines provide reduced protection from new variants. I read today that most effective vaccine only provides a ~70% chance or so of protection from the Delta variant in the UK. Hence the talk of booster shots before the initial vaccines were rolled out.

Herd immunity comes from vaccination. It's not really feasible for it to occur naturally because the virus will continue to mutate and reinfect people indefinitely.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#432

Post by jonhohle »

mahogany wrote: post #423
jonhohle wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm concerned, especially in the tech community, that there is so much aggravation toward a group that wants more data before making a decision that could have long term repercussions. The CDC has a page describing past vaccine safety issues, the most recent being 2013[0]. Errors include unexpected side effects or complicates and manufacturing issues. The treatment being offered is unlike any other mainstream protoco…

> The CDC has a page describing past vaccine safety issues, the most recent being 2013[0]. That most recent one says there was a voluntary recall and no health problems were reported. Doesn't sound too concerning to me to be honest. And because you mention long term effects a couple times -- how long would be long enough for you to feel okay about the safety of the vaccine, and how did you come up with this number?

The FDA has a process for approving vaccines. It seems to work reasonably well. At this point I have no issue with their process, which should, hypothetically, identify any long term effects. There currently are no preventative treatments for COVID that have completed the FDA approval process. The J&J shot at least uses a method previously used in an approved vaccine, but in that case (Ebola), the calculus probably makes more sense for those in areas prone to outbreaks.

It’s not about an arbitrary time, it’s about following an established protocol that has been used for every single other injection I’ve been given. (I’m currently going through allergy therapy, so I get a fair number of injections every month.)

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#433

Post by jader201 »

avz wrote: post #325
trutannus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime A lot of it boils down to people not trusting what they're seeing. Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. In Canada at least an insane amount of what was said turned out to be…

> [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more…

By that logic, who’s to say “things won’t change” again, such that they find there is cause for concern after all?

I’m not saying that’s what I believe, but if you’re admitting that we’re “changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in”, that also implies that we didn’t — and may still not — have all the data in front of us to make decisions.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#434

Post by gus_massa »

tptacek wrote: post #118
azinman2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But compared to someone who isn't in CS, they'd at least understand that GPUs exist, might be able to speculate on what's needed, and have an idea of who to even ask. I don't work on operating systems but I had a CS education, so I know enough about the kinds of things it needs to worry about that I could answer about the building blocks of a kernel in a way that I feel would be largely correct.

I think the quality of the speculation you'd get from a random software developer on the design of GPU drivers is, in fact, probably a good model for the quality of vaccinology speculation you'd get from a random anesthesiologist. But a neat thing about HN is that there are people here who've been to med school and can presumably chime in. What I can tell you personally is that vaccinology seems to involve a lot of c…

Probably the person that is producing the vaccine is not the same person that is running the clinical trials and it's not the same person that is calculation the statistics and writing the final paper.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#436

Post by jimmydorry »

kaba0 wrote: post #369
mandmandam wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all vaccines are the same, so pro science and anti vaxx are not always opposed. I am pro science, but science doesn't claim that all vaccines are safe. And let's not forget that pharma co's have tried very hard to make vaccines mandatory, to the point of bribing academics and officials, forming unaccountable PR groups, and in the not so distant past they've done truly horrific and inhuman things. After the lab-le…

> I am pro science, but science doesn't claim that all vaccines are safe Indeed. But science does claim that Pfizer, Moderna, etc COVID-vaccines are safe and you are un-scientific if you claim otherwise. They went through proper trials, and were accepted independently* by many countries. * not completely independently I’m sure, but my point is that even if you don’t trust your country at all, several other ones decid…

Claims != science. Any company is free to make any claim they want, and they can offer proof in the form of trials. These trials help us form opinions on the safety of a product, however, the long-term safety profile of novel innovations takes time to verify and trials can be manipulated in many subtle ways.

The FDA and other bodies dictate what kind of testing and certification must happen before allowing the sale of such products. And in very rare cases will offer emergency approval that bypasses quite a lot of the trialing or cut short the standards that must be met.

To claim any treatment is safe and that any skepticism prior to long-term trials is unscientific... flies in the face of all reason.

Did we learn anything from: cigarrettes, Fen-Phen, Valdecoxib (Bextra), Pemoline (Cylert), Bromfenac (Duract), Levamisole (Ergamisol), Rofecoxib (Vioxx), Isotretinoin (Accutane), and many many more.

All of these products were FDA approved, a feat these vaccines are yet to achieve.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#437

Post by dlp211 »

ghoward wrote: post #425
dlp211 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If masks and social distancing didn't work, you need to have some idea of why the Flu had its mildest year ever. Also, countless people have demonstrated with pulseox meters that blood oxygen saturation is unaffected by mask wearing, so while those findings are interesting, you are far too quick to draw any type of conclusions that masks don't work and/or are harmful.

And people are far too quick to think that masks do work and/or are not harmful. What happened to the Precautionary Principle?

Sorry, the entire medical field exists as a counterpoint to the idea that masks are harmful.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#438

Post by freyr »

tptacek wrote: post #264
freyr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative here is ignoring the software engineer, and instead asking the crazy person on the corner who’s shouting at the sky and wearing his underwear on his head. Getting the perspective of the software engineer is a reasonable step, and certainly better than basing your beliefs on the rankings of the insane person.

No, I think the alternative here is asking vaccinologists.

Sorry, I didn’t read all of of the original comment earlier.

Now I see where you’re coming from with the suggestion to go straight to a qualified source instead of asking a bunch of random people.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#439

Post by [deleted] »

pciexpgpu wrote: post #18

This is good. Now states are combating such hesitancy by drawing lottery for vaccinated folks. Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death *isn't* already the lottery win of our lifetime?? People in India and elsewhere are dying because of lack of vaccines and here we have educated, first world countries struggle to get their citizens vaccinated. Unfortunately sham…

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#440

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throwawaysea wrote: post #396
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's kind of irrelevant, since those bits aren't the part that were causing concern. Nobody's worried that the part that stabilizes it for storage is going to "create a new humanoid race". That's purely based on (a misunderstanding of) the mRNA.

I wasn’t asking out of that same motivation. I was just wondering how true it is that the body gets rid of all the components of the vaccine and simply retains the benefit of antibodies with no “vaccine remnants”.

Ah. It is an interesting question, I admit.
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