Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now • Hacker News Board

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#411

Post by betwixthewires » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #237

bwship wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I decided not to get the vaccine. Three weeks ago, my friend who had gotten the vaccine got Covid, and then gave it to me. (He also beat me in golf that day which says a lot more about my golf than his ability to play while sick). But anyway, we both lost our sense of taste and smell, had fevers, were achy, him up until about a week ago, me up until a couple of days ago. So, perhaps he would have had an…

I roll a six sided die. You roll a 20 sided die. We both get a 4. I guess they're the same.

Except the 6 and 20 numbers are ones you just made up to support your position and make yourself feel warm inside but this fact just makes your entire statement meaningless and at the center of your grin at your own wit is an empty, hollow nothing.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#412

Post by betwixthewires » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #278

bwship wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of the original comment was that 1. someone with the vaccine and someone without both had an identical reaction to the virus and 2. just because everyone on the pro-vaccine side makes claims that this vaccine is safe, there are no long-term studies on it. So my point about my immune system was that yes I was willing to roll the dice and deal with the virus when/if it came to me. And I did. I will get…

There are no long term studies on COVID. But what informatrion we do have suggests it can cause prolonged damage. Including erectile dysfunction.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#413

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

mchusma wrote: post #139

The whole booster conversation seems like a political game. If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). If you don't have a vaccine by now, you want covid instead and this booster conversation is irrelevant. Kids are banned from taking anything. So I expect booster or no booster, frankly it just won't matter much at the population scale. I also don't understand the mas…

[deleted]

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#414

Post by swader999 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #86

swader999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it doesn't prevent spread. If you are less symptomatic because vaccine limited the severity, you will be more likely to be functioning socially and spreading it. Also, a million doses to kids will likely result in one less ICU admission but create six myocarditus cases. What's the five year average outcome for those six kids?

> Except that it doesn't prevent spread That's right, it doesn't prevent it, it reduces it. Just like wearing a seat belt does not prevent dying in a car accident but reduces the risk. You're just splitting hair.

I'm not saying it doesn't reduce individual risk for a period of time. It does.

But vaccinating entire populations for a respiratory virus that mutates and stays infectious is a recipe for never ending boosters and has a strong possibility of creating more lethal variants because these will thrive in the vaccinated less severe masses when normally they'd be bed ridden, symptomatic and easily contained through contact tracing (See sars 1)

You better hope they dial the targeting for the boosters and the timing of them correctly because when you're short lived immunity wanes from the previous dose you may be facing a more tuned up lethal version that was kept circulating by all these vaccinated persons.

Vaccines for the most vulnerable are very appropriate here but not for the individuals that have very low risk. It would be better to unlock this population and let them develop stronger natural immunity while dealing with the edge cases with monoclonal antibodies and other promising viral therapies.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#415

Post by BitwiseFool » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #404

BitwiseFool wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Raise your hand if you would NEVER trust a vaccine pushed by a bleach-injection, snake-oil selling conman" -@mmpadellan (BrooklynDad_Defiant!) https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1306308110458511360?la... "I've been saying this shit for months. No surprise here. If you take Donald Trump's rushed "vaccine" you're an idiot." -@donwinslow (Don Winslow) https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1315830184084336640?la...

A few random people on rose Twitter? Seriously, that is the best you can find? Thanks for proving my point for me.

>"A few random people on rose Twitter? Seriously, that is the best you can find? Thanks for proving my point for me. "

So I'll re-quote the parent comment you made: >"NO ONE was calling it 'the Trump vaccine.' No one."

Emphasis on the 'NO ONE', that you asserted in all caps and then bothered to repeat as it's own sentence. I literally just provided you two examples of people on the left insinuating as such.

>"Seriously, that is the best you can find?"

I suppose pundits and left-leaning influencers who regularly reach the top of the trending feed on Twitter don't count. Would you rather I find nobodies? I would dredge up quotes from columnists or campaign trail statements that allude to the vaccine being untrustworthy because of it's association with Donald Trump, but I sense you're just going to ignore them and further proclaim that I've proved your point - somehow.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#416

Post by lp0_on_fire » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

serf wrote: post #387

beamatronic wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind of equivalence statement to the flu is a well-known conservative "dog whistle"

that's exactly why you should rethink the concept of a 'dog whistle'. 1 ) painting an individual politically by extrapolating a single opinion across their entire persona is irresponsible and over-simple. 2 ) 'conservative' is over-generalized to the point of uselessness and ambiguity. it's a concept (dog whistle) that is used strictly for generating rage and calling other individuals to arms so that the crowd picks…

In my experience the people who announce 'dog whistles' are rarely arguing in good faith.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#417

Post by spywaregorilla » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

34679 wrote: post #357

spywaregorilla wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone were struggling with alcoholism, and I offered them an FDA approved shot to remove their addiction to alcohol, I would consider them fairly stupid if they refused it. Handling diseases and addictions is a long term struggle, not similar to a one time choice at all. It is orders of magnitude easier to get a covid shot than to rid yourself of an addiction.

It's not really fair to compare a healthy person to someone "struggling with alcoholism". If you run into a bar shouting about the dangers of consuming alcohol while promising an injection that makes a person never want to drink again, I would consider you fairly stupid.

That's my point. Falling victim to alcoholism is not an apt analogy to getting a covid shot. People don't generally choose to become alcoholics. If you really want to make your contrived example fit, it would be something like a shot that prevents organ damage from alcohol, not desire to drink.

If such a thing were available, and people refused, and then got alcohol poisoning, then it is arguable that, on some level, their stupidity is to blame here.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#418

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #291

tzs wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). That seems worth checking. US flu deaths per year over the last 10 years ranged from 12000 to 61000, averaging 35900 [1]. That's 3.7 to 18.6 per 100k, averaging 10.9 per 100k. Weekly COVID deaths among vaccinated people is 0.1 per 100k [2]. The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death rate of 0.1 per 100k over…

Doesn't seem quite right to compare historical flu rates of the general population to mask mandated covid rates among vaccinated. As it is today, it seems like flu deaths are far less frequent than covid deaths. Cherry picked link but it _is_ the cdc. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm >Among the 3,388 PIC deaths reported for this week, 2,785 had COVID-19 listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death o…

You just said it's not fair to compare mask mandated rates, but then compare against the flu, which obviously is affected by the mask mandates (also mask mandates right now in the US are a bit of a joke, have you seen a sports game recently?).

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#419

Post by fy20 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #287

Thlom wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has not met their maximum vaccination percentage. According to the graph I get in Google the US is stuck on around 50% fully vaccinated. Considering the head start they had on most of the world and the vaccine supplies this can't be described as anything other than a complete and utter failure on all levels.

> complete and utter failure on all levels Is the There's an immense machine at work spreading FUD about the vaccine, and whole swaths of (mostly red) states where people refuse to get vaccinated. So at least some of the reason for the low vaccination rate is due to no fault of the system, but rather the parties with an interest in working against the system. I live in NL, and people here were anxiously waiting their…

I live in another European country and people here were also patiently waiting there turn... and then those people got vaccinated and nobody else wants to. This week the government has put into effect new regulations that effectively ban unvaccinated people from going into many shops and restaurants, as a way of trying to encourage more people to take up vaccines. They are also selling excess vaccines to African countries.

Re: Vaccine experts: Covid-19 booster shots aren't needed now

#420

Post by tzs » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #310

tzs wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a vaccine, then your risk of death is far below that of the flu (statistically). That seems worth checking. US flu deaths per year over the last 10 years ranged from 12000 to 61000, averaging 35900 [1]. That's 3.7 to 18.6 per 100k, averaging 10.9 per 100k. Weekly COVID deaths among vaccinated people is 0.1 per 100k [2]. The flu season is typically about 8 months. A weekly death rate of 0.1 per 100k over…

Any kind of equivalence statement to the flu is a well-known conservative "dog whistle"

Isn't the dog whistle comparing COVID without vaccination/masking/distancing/etc to the flu, to downplay the severity of the pandemic and hence the need to take any action against it?

A comparison of COVID risk in vaccinated people showing that vaccination apparently reduces the risk to less than that of the average seasonal flu is the opposite of what the usually dog whistling people are trying to convey.