Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Delta Variant

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 442 posts

Re: Delta Variant

#261

Post by aeternum »

omegaworks wrote: post #246
bamboozled wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this, I'm still on the fence about taking it for this reason, it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood. Edit: Again with the downvotes, it's a fact . No one has had this vaccine for 3,5 or 10 years. The long term effects cannot be fully understood until such time has lapsed and studies have been completed. Here, the creator of mRNA vaccines discusses t…

The vaccine is new, but the mRNA delivery system has been in the pipeline for decades, with other treatments actively undergoing the normal, slow FDA process[1]. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-...

Yes, but why is it okay to approve this mRNA delivery system in a matter of months while the approval for these others require decades of test?

There's clearly inconsistency by the FDA here.

Re: Delta Variant

#262

Post by mindslight »

bamboozled wrote: post #172
aeternum wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons people choose not to get the vaccine. What evidence do you have that the main issue is a distrust of authority? The main authority on this, the FDA has not even officially approved the vaccine and likely won't for quite awhile. For some people it is logical to ask why other vaccines require 10year+ trials and for this a few months was sufficient. While personally, I think the risk of the virus…

Thanks for writing this, I'm still on the fence about taking it for this reason, it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood. Edit: Again with the downvotes, it's a fact . No one has had this vaccine for 3,5 or 10 years. The long term effects cannot be fully understood until such time has lapsed and studies have been completed. Here, the creator of mRNA vaccines discusses t…

You're getting downvoted because your post is the standard antivax trope of "just asking questions", which is ultimately FUD.

What you're actually doing is completely discounting possible long term effects from the choice to do nothing. Nobody has been a Covid-19 survivor for 3, 5 or 10 years, nor do we know the big picture epidemiological impact of unchecked Covid for 3, 5, or 10 years.

The only data we have is necessarily from the present. And here and now, it seems to indicate that getting vaccinated is a prudent thing to do.

Re: Delta Variant

#263

Post by oezi »

blindmute wrote: post #231
murgindrag wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, my experience is that the main reason is distrust of authority. It's usually warranted distrust too. Authorities aren't trustworthy. To answer your question: (1) Most vaccines don't have 10+ year trials. A year is not even the fastest; the flu on 1957-1958 has a vaccine developed in 4 months. (2) Most medical trials are slower since everything is done sequentially, since there is no rush. You can do an a…

I am unvaccinated and probably will remain so for this particular vaccination. I don't truly believe that the risk of the vaccine outweighs the risk of the virus to me. It's more that I weigh the risk of covid at around zero, and the risk of vaccine at a question mark. I cannot trust the institutions pushing this vaccine at all. At worst, I trust the opposite of what they say about anything politicized. But let's jus…

This all makes sense if you are

- less than 18 years old. For everyone older, all countries in the world have come to the conclusion that vaccination is safer than staying without vaccination.

- only considering yourself and not the risk that you are part of the reason it spreads.

What lies at the foundation of all this is your distrust and I would suggest you consider how to deal with that. If you can't trust the media and governments (and you actually should trust them to a large part), how about following role-models or friends? Or best how about following data and science? If a whole nation such as Israel goes for a vaccine such as Pfizer don't you think they do their homework?

Re: Delta Variant

#264

Post by ElectronCharge »

OzyM wrote: post #169
ElectronCharge wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ignoring the higher risk of major long-term damage incurred by letting yourself get sick when you could've been vaccinated, I don't understand how this thought process accounts for anyone else. What if my main reason for getting vaccinated is to lower my chance of infecting an immunocompromised person I care about? Even if I could somehow be 100% certain that if I were to be infected it'd be fully asymptomatic, the v…

[flagged]

Re: Delta Variant

#265

Post by rajin444 »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #149
rajin444 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling disease spread exponential is dishonest. It’s exponential for a time, but there is an upper limit (which is dictated by a ton of complex variables).

It's not dishonest if it's literally true, as you already admitted. This is like saying "it's dishonest to say drinking water is essential for health when obviously you'll die if someone sticks a hose down your throat and forces you to drink until you die".

It's not literally true. Exponential goes forever. A vrius will not. Where it stops is incredibly complex. It's exponential to a point, and where that point is is extremely important.

Re: Delta Variant

#266

Post by bamboozled »

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #254
bamboozled wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this, I'm still on the fence about taking it for this reason, it was rushed and the longer term implications are certainly still not fully understood. Edit: Again with the downvotes, it's a fact . No one has had this vaccine for 3,5 or 10 years. The long term effects cannot be fully understood until such time has lapsed and studies have been completed. Here, the creator of mRNA vaccines discusses t…

This guy is not the creator of mRNA vaccines, he’s just a guy who did something slightly related with mRNA forty years ago, and is now trying to ride the wave to money. I think it’s fair to say the vaccine was rushed, but that’s because we have been having the second largest pandemic of the century. More Americans are dead from this than died in WW2. I didn’t downvote you. I do wish we had a longer trial period, and…

Don’t attack people, it just weakens your comment. You’ve not really added anything useful to the discussion unfortunately.

Saying someone speaks to right wing people means nothing to me.

Re: Delta Variant

#267

Post by mindslight »

aeternum wrote: post #261
omegaworks wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccine is new, but the mRNA delivery system has been in the pipeline for decades, with other treatments actively undergoing the normal, slow FDA process[1]. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-...

Yes, but why is it okay to approve this mRNA delivery system in a matter of months while the approval for these others require decades of test? There's clearly inconsistency by the FDA here.

Why is it okay to destroy someone's house with axes and water when it's on fire but otherwise it's illegal? There's clearly inconsistency by the fire department here.

Seriously, what other course of events do you propose should have happened? Vaccines couldn't have been developed before Covid-19 existed. Should we have just pretended that mRNA technology didn't exist, in favor of traditional approaches of making vaccines, and then rushed approval on those? It seems like that alternative has actually been explored by other countries and they're nowhere near as effective.

Re: Delta Variant

#268

Post by simonh »

blindmute wrote: post #231
murgindrag wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, my experience is that the main reason is distrust of authority. It's usually warranted distrust too. Authorities aren't trustworthy. To answer your question: (1) Most vaccines don't have 10+ year trials. A year is not even the fastest; the flu on 1957-1958 has a vaccine developed in 4 months. (2) Most medical trials are slower since everything is done sequentially, since there is no rush. You can do an a…

I am unvaccinated and probably will remain so for this particular vaccination. I don't truly believe that the risk of the vaccine outweighs the risk of the virus to me. It's more that I weigh the risk of covid at around zero, and the risk of vaccine at a question mark. I cannot trust the institutions pushing this vaccine at all. At worst, I trust the opposite of what they say about anything politicized. But let's jus…

That may be a reasonable decision as an individual. I disagree because I think the risks from the vaccines are near zero (not actually, but near), while here in the UK most hospital admissions now are young people so clearly the risk to them is not at all zero. Still, you'll probably be fine.

The problem with that calculation though is that it doesn't take into account the increased risk to other people. If you do catch it you'll become a vector for infecting other people, some of which might be a lot more vulnerable or less lucky than yourself. Even if you only pass it on to other younger people, the odds of someone having a bad reaction still go up with infections.

Re: Delta Variant

#269

Post by OzyM »

bamboozled wrote: post #245
OzyM wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, if everyone around you is vaccinated to the point of virtual herd immunity (afaik not currently true anywhere, but perhaps given more time / incentives / information that may change), you being the only unvaccinated person wouldn't be a major concern (except insofar as it indicates less concern for other people in other contexts). The main issue is that there are still plenty of people with your same mi…

I've had many vaccines before, I'm not opposed to vaccines. I'm opposed to this particular vaccines because: * There are reports of dangerous side effects after taking it. * It's a new vaccine and the effects of the spike proteins it forces your body to produce have been found in places we were told they wouldn't be found. * No long term studies have been done, even though lipids from the vaccine have been found in r…

All the major side effects I've heard of have been very small in scope, i.e. the chance of a healthy person developing one of the dangerous side effects is extremely small, and certainly orders of magnitude smaller than their chance of proportionally damaging side-effects from the disease itself. As every vaccine currently developed has a small side-effect risk, this seems reasonable, unless you have a major piece of data I'm missing.

As far as I can tell, any variables about the vaccines seem extremely safe compared to the unknown variables incurred by those with symptomatic infections.

I agree that people in high risk categories who can be vaccinated should do so. However, the vaccine is only mostly effective, not 100% effective, so to some extent their health is still influenced by the health of those around them.

As far as social pressure, pushing (but not forcing) people toward decisions that benefit everyone seems like the entire point of social pressure. People should be given all of the relevant information and should be free to make their own medical decisions. However, there should be some expectation that one tries not to spread deadly diseases to vulnerable populations, and schools / businesses / etc. should absolutely feel free to require vaccination (of those capable of being vaccinated).

But re: your other comment about wearing a mask, if you're one of the rare people who won't be vaccinated but still keep your mask on in all public places, wash your hands frequently, and stay 6 feet apart from everyone not in your household, you not getting vaccinated isn't a major concern. But the people who use these justifications (disclaimer: anecdata) aren't usually taking those precautions.

Re: Delta Variant

#270

Post by throwaway316943 »

specialist wrote: post #179
usrusr wrote: post #32

Is seems kind of logical in hindsight: the first mutation of the predecessor bat/pangolin/whatever virus genome to cross over to humans is an MVP full of "compatibility bugs" that barely achieves R0>1. A few billion dicerolls later many of those "compatibility bugs" have found fixes. Remember the hand washing phase of the pandemic? Aerosol transmission was basically ruled out because it was assumed that spread would…

> Remember the hand washing phase of the pandemic? Guidelines need to be enumerated, like product releases. So much angst would be avoided. When there's a disagreement, the parties (operating in good faith) could go meta and compare guideline versions. Which would help resolve differences. "Oh, you're following guidelines USA-1.4. I see. FYI, last week our governor issued USA-NY-1.5, clarifying protocols for open air…

Even easier would be simply admitting they were wrong about the previous guidelines and explaining why, you know like grown ups.
Post reply on HN