451–460 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We all know that most people get COVID and then get over it, but using a few neutral anecdotes to deny the other issues is like trying to invalidate global warming because the weather isn’t hot where you live. It’s not about comparing all of our anecdotes.
I mean 98% recover and many don't even have symptoms. The outliers are the ones getting seriously ill.
I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated. As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going t…
If you want to do some productive worrying, figure out how to reduce your child's risk of dying in a car crash. That's much more of a risk.
>Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear.
If I had to guess it is probably because you need a large group to prove its effective since so few children get seriously ill. Child mortality is under 0.0002%. You need a huge control group to get any sense of whether the vaccine works at preventing deaths.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting that you phrase it that way, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, but from the opposite direction. I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks. Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most s…
If you don’t mind, why not get vaccinated? Like, what is the downside? I know this is a dangerous topic, especially on the internet with strangers, so feel free to just not respond - that would be understandable. But I am curious to hear your thought process.
There doesn't seem to be a solid reason to take the vaccine, for me specifically. Could easily make me sick for a day(s), with a very small chance of even worse side effects.
Some of it I'm sure is a personality trait, I just generally need a good reason to do things.
If vaccines passports or other such measures get introduced (UK) I'll get it reluctantly, because that's a bastardized reason & a benefit.
Great article! Just a week or two ago on this forum there were people willing to treat me like a far right conservative or a general anti-vaxxer from the facebook troll factory, just because I didn't like a private institution’s booster mandate. That was fascinating.
I've vaxxed and boosted and will continue to get boosted as often as is recommended. I follow the local regulations, which in NYC mainly involve masking up and showing a vax proof for indoor activities like dining, concerts, and riding the NYC subway. I'm not stopping my life though. I've travelled internationally in the past few months, both to see family and sight-see. Seems like not a bad compromise. The one thing…
You don’t have to have proof of vaccination to ride the subway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start I think it's worth considering a different framing: > "There would have been so much less confusion if COVID variants and transmission/hospitalization/death rates remained consistent from the start" It's easy to call out the communication, and don't get me wrong, it surely could have been better. But I often…
Exactly. It’s quite an unfair criticism, and it keeps being applied retroactively to thinks like masking, lockdowns, etc. It’s like people expect a government to have completely knowledge from day 1 of a new virus and all of its mutations across all of time. Throw in politicization of it, tons of non-mutual “facts” going around, a heap of anecdotes, and you’ve got a communications nightmare.
Political and scientific leaders knew this, and they made a decision to exaggerate the level of confidence they had or should have had in several of these matters. No one seriously expected leadership to have complete knowledge from day 1, but that's not the criticism. Nor is the criticism that facts change on the ground in fast-moving situations. Of course they do.
The criticism is that they knowingly overstated their factual case at the time so that they could implement their chosen strategies, even to the point of suppressing legitimate scientific dissent, and are now unconvincingly trying to use "facts on the ground change", "science learns over time", and "of course we couldn't have been expected to know everything" as excuses for those decisions.
If you're making very confident policy-guiding assertions to the public on behalf of Science (TM), and when you're right, it's evidence of how great Science is, and when you're wrong, it's because Science is a process of continual revision and uncertain information, that creates a bit of moral hazard. It works internally in science, where there are no consequences for being wrong other than wasted time, but not in the real world where there are real consequences for being wrong.
I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards. It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away. That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a forese…
It's interesting that you phrase it that way, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, but from the opposite direction. I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks. Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most s…
That is the exact opposite of what i have read. One random example:
I've gone through cycles with this. Mostly I am done arguing. I hate arguing about this. It's just more of the culture war shit that so many different media sources love pushing to keep people amped up. I double vaxxed and boosted. Stopped wearing a mask for the most part, but with Omicron I started wearing a mask again because I just don't want this stupid virus. I'm healthy and would probably not have a symptomatic…
I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards. It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away. That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a forese…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've got your anecdotes, and I've got mine. My 3 young kids all caught omicron last week. Each were lethargic for a day, had a minor sore throat, and were back to normal in a day or two. The flu last month was way scarier with high fevers. There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.
We all know that most people get COVID and then get over it, but using a few neutral anecdotes to deny the other issues is like trying to invalidate global warming because the weather isn’t hot where you live. It’s not about comparing all of our anecdotes.