US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#51

Post by jonplackett » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

hellohiyesokay wrote: post #36

jonplackett wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of other things to compare it to as well. It's a roughly 1 in a million chance of dying - which is called a Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort We 'spend' about one micromort of risk per day of being alive. Or you can spend one walking for 6 hours, or driving 250 miles (or 6 miles on a motorbike) I just made a website to show all the other stuff we do all the time without worrying with the…

Your link only has IPv6 records but the www. subdomain has IPv4.

Hey. What will that mean exactly? DNS is through Cloudflare using their magical CNAME pointer. Can you access OK?

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#52

Post by mft_ » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #20

We’ve completely transformed human civilization in a desperate attempt to slow down the spread of this virus that kills 1 in 200 people, and now we don’t want to use one of the miracle cures because of a literal one in a million chance of issues. People are absolute garbage at thinking about scale.

Deaths from COVID aren't seen as the direct 'fault' of the regulatory bodies. Deaths from a vaccine will be... and fundamentally, regulatory bodies aren't really incentivised to take risks anyway.

If they follow your line of thinking and it's all fine... no-one's going to be writing articles praising them.

If they follow your line of thinking and more people die form blood clots... people will write articles attacking them. Questions will be asked, and careers may be harmed. Etc.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#53

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

Not fucking again, we had enough of this scaring with the AZ vaccine. While it definitely is sensible to investigate what causes thrombosis in the covid vaccines, the risk of thrombosis caused by either Covid19 itself or by everyday medication such as the anti-baby pill is many orders of magnitude larger.

It would be great if media still had actual science reporters who could inform their readers that while, yes, there is a thrombosis risk from the vaccine, you're way more likely to get a thrombosis from your contraceptive.

Unfortunately, most media these days rather prefers scare-mongering for clicks.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#54

Post by throwaway823882 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was acting "out of an abundance of caution".

How is putting millions of people at risk of long-term (or fatal) complications from COVID-19 an abundance of caution? An abundance of caution would mean you give people the vaccine because that way, less people will die! Unless a thousand people are dying from the vaccine a day, the math is simple!

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#55

Post by jjcon » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #20

We’ve completely transformed human civilization in a desperate attempt to slow down the spread of this virus that kills 1 in 200 people, and now we don’t want to use one of the miracle cures because of a literal one in a million chance of issues. People are absolute garbage at thinking about scale.

> kills 1 in 200 people

It kills less than that in the demographic in question, not to mention that is only of those who contract the virus.

> People are absolute garbage at thinking about scale.

I don’t think it is that, I think it is that for better or worse humans tend to view wrongs through inaction as less atrocious than wrongs through action. Additionally - they already have better alternatives and plenty of supply in the US (Moderna and Pfizer vaccines) so they are opting to just use those at the moment.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#56

Post by smiley1437 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

I think that simple news reporting inadvertently screws up how the general public perceives low-probability events.

Whether it's an airplane crash or a blood clot caused by a vaccine, human minds simply can't 'feel' that a phenomenon is rare when it is repeated over and over again in their newsfeed.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#57

Post by tombert » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #20

We’ve completely transformed human civilization in a desperate attempt to slow down the spread of this virus that kills 1 in 200 people, and now we don’t want to use one of the miracle cures because of a literal one in a million chance of issues. People are absolute garbage at thinking about scale.

First, it’s closer to 4 in 200 [1]

Second, there’s evidence that even if people don’t die, there can be long term neurological effects [2].

Third, even if we accept your number, 1 in 200 would still be 1.5 million Americans dead, not even considering the rest of the world. I am personally not comfortable doing nothing to stop that number.

I agree that being super worried about a 1 in a million blood clot might be short sighted, especially since the death rate from catching the virus is 2 in 100.

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2BT2ZI

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#58

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Agreed, anti-vaxxers are already using this for their propaganda efforts. The core problem is that statistics isn't something that's well taught in schools, and so people can't understand effects of scale.

330M people means that (assuming an 1:1M incidence and a 80% vaxx rate) there will be 264 people dying from thrombosis. Which is bad, but nowhere near as bad as the millions that would die from an actual covid19 case.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#59

Post by Y_Y » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

pithon wrote: post #29

jonplackett wrote: post #18

I just made this website to show you how really, really small the risks are, and how they compare to risks we happily take every single day. whatoneinamillionmeans.com If you're not willing to take 1 in a million chances, it's gonna be pretty hard for you to get out of bed today. This vaccine seems to have about the same rate, which makes sense as I think it uses the same technology.

"That’s the same risk as driving London to Liverpool" This was the first one your website presented and I have no idea what it means.

> I have no idea what it means

You have the whole internet available. I bet you can work it out without too much effort.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#60

Post by mike_red5hift » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #18

I just made this website to show you how really, really small the risks are, and how they compare to risks we happily take every single day. whatoneinamillionmeans.com If you're not willing to take 1 in a million chances, it's gonna be pretty hard for you to get out of bed today. This vaccine seems to have about the same rate, which makes sense as I think it uses the same technology.

Thanks! Now I'm never leaving the house again.