More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’ • Hacker News Board

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#511

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #426

nostrademons wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is the lack of data on long-term effects of COVID. Preliminary studies have linked it to cognitive declines [1], diabetes [2], and chronic fatigue [3]. And while death from COVID in a preschooler is about a 1-in-100,000 occurrence, long COVID and other chronic outcomes seem to be much more common. I've heard figures of about 5% or 1 in 20. Few parents would willingly sign their preschooler (or themselve…

Ok, but what are the long term effects of every other virus preschoolers could get? I doubt that covid is unique in that respect

Those are not insubstantial:

Diabetes has been documented as a symptom of cytomegalovirus (mono), mumps, rubella, rotavirus, and enteroviruses (polio and hand-foot-mouth). Fatigue is a symptom of lyme disease and mono.

I don't want my kids to get any of those either, and they were vaccinated for mumps, rubella, rotavirus, and polio by age 1. If I have the choice of being cautious for 3 months until a vaccine is available for COVID, I'll take it.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#512

Post by mehrdada » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #433

claytongulick wrote: post #215

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…

For what it's worth, recovering from the disease and getting a "booster" vaccine a few months later yields the best protection. I hope you do this. People who are relying solely on disease recovery are far more likely to be reinfected, and face worse outcomes, as compared to people who get their full three-dose vaccine (two primary + booster). Incidentally, your thought process is suffering from the naturalistic fall…

Where did you get this data? All CDC itself says on the website says “Cases of reinfection with COVID-19 have been reported, but remain rare. [1]” and it seems there is an active effort to suppress the effectiveness of natural immunity effectiveness (at least against the same strain). Intuitively given vaccine’s ineffectiveness at protecting against Omicron spread, I tend to think the push for boosters are quite dubious and natural immunity is at least as good as vax if not better, and sufficiently low risk for Omicron after 2x vax. Besides, anecdotal experience of below 40 adult friends catching Omicron with 2x or 3x vax has been much easier than the two days of bitter experience after their last dose of Moderna. The only acceptable rationale is to flatten the curve so the Omicron surge wouldn’t DoS hospitals in the short term which can happen even if the relative risk of hospitalization is low due to the high transmission rates, but that can be better achieved via more temporary isolation/N95/etc than boosters.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/reinfe...

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#513

Post by inglor_cz » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #372

nradov wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSV is more dangerous than COVID-19 for most small children. We don't shut down society because of RSV. https://www.medscape.com/answers/971488-177692/what-is-the-p...

And we aren’t shutting society down because of the risk of C19 to small children either. The risk to children is part of that, but the risk to the adults who care for them is another reason. Additionally, staffing levels are impacted because the adults who have it. Also, generically, when we have a super spreadable disease, we want to minimize transmission. This is done as a precaution against mutation (the more infe…

"Also, generically, when we have a super spreadable disease, we want to minimize transmission."

There is a contradiction in there. Minimizing transmission of super spreadable disease is extremely hard, precisely because it is super spreadable; in this case, just by breathing in the same space. It could be done with very harsh measures - see the Zero Covid strategy in China - but after two years of pandemics, people are tired.

"as a precaution against mutation (the more infections mean more mutations!)"

True, but there are 8 billion people out there and a majority of them aren't living in countries that successfully minimized transmissions of covid. Further mutations will likely come anyway, as the global viral load is probably in trillions of viral particles daily. At that point, it is a question of tradeoff.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#514

Post by chmod600 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

Covid is no longer an emergency. It's been two years.

It's time for the executives and individual teachers to stand down and work within the intent of the laws as they are on the books. If the legislatures didn't pass the right laws, then too bad, and people may die.

But anything else is tyranny of the executive. And if we don't take the power back from them now, they will never give it up later. It may already be too late.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#515

Post by amelius » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #129

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…

Let's be clear. More people die of air pollution and climate change than of COVID, but the latter turns out to be a disease that requires immediate care which is why it gets more attention.

Before the attitude changes and governments broaden their view, I can understand why people feel "done" with it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-10/air-po...

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#516

Post by outside1234 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

Its time to move on. Everyone has had a chance to get vaccinated and boosted that is at high risk (under 5s are not at high risk). We can't live in our houses forever.

Said another way, the mental health issues with being stuck in our houses are much more severe than COVID-19 at this point.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#517

Post by isubasinghe » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

toshk wrote: post #368

Of course people are done with it. Vaccinations were sold as the solution to the pandemic. Yet worldwide infections are going up at the same speed if not faster than before vaccinations. But no policy maker acknowledges this. They refer to the lowered death rate, or blame a new variant. But it means that policy that gave people more freedom because of their vaccination status are not having any significant effect on…

At the same time though, opening up completely comes at hospitals being overwhelmed, supply chains breaking apart (already happened in my country).

It is a bit of a paradox. There is no right action it seems, locking up doesn't make sense but neither does opening up.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#518

Post by astn-austin » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #363

jsodw wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Moderna's mRNA vaccine is based on one they tested for SARS-Cov-1 in 2003, and they have done long-term follow-up on those participants. They all turned into alligators after 15 years.

That's like saying: the crotch rocket is based on internal combustion engines, that have been proven safe in multiple automobiles. So crotch rockets are safe because they use internal combustion engines. MRNA is the platform. You can do good and bad things with the same platform.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#519

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

xkbarkar wrote: post #314

ketzo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed I very, very much disagree with this. Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care. People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of other…

I could use the same rationale to say people who are fat are willingly putting others in danger. As up to 75% of C19 hospitaltizations are obese persons I could just a s easily hunt down overweights and accuse them of murder as their unhealthy habits are now clogging the medical system forcing us to shut down society to protect them. I could call them names ,like typhoid Maries. Fat fucks. Ban them from participating…

> Unconditinal medical care is one of the corner stones of our society.

Are you British or something?

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#520

Post by cableshaft » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #429

cableshaft wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters) True, but Trump only dealt with Covid for about 9 months at most, and that was starting from 0 cases in February, meanwhile Biden has dealt with it for 13 months at this point, and also took office in the middle of the major winter wave, and then the Delta wave in mid 2021, and now th…

Biden has indirectly blamed all COVID deaths during the Trump administration on Trump, so it's fair to blame Biden for COVID deaths during his administration on him, too. Biden has had office for longer, but the vaccine has also been available for about that long, too.

I don't even blame Trump for all the Covid deaths that happened during the Trump administration. There were a bunch of factors involved, and state governments and the attitudes of US citizens had a lot to do with it as well.

Trump made several colossal fuckups, especially when it came to his public communications, but he made some good decisions as well (letting the early shelter-in-place orders happen, stimulus checks, freezing student loans, pushing the vaccine program, etc).

All I'm saying is that of course Biden would have had higher deaths while he was in office than Trump, unless he managed to convince ~95%+ of the public to get vaccinated right away, which was never going to happen, and unless the whole world got Covid-19 under control in about the same time period as Trump was in office while the pandemic was in the US, and if there were no other more infectious variants that happened during that time.