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Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

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Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#781

Post by titanomachy »

petertodd wrote: post #730
schmichael wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re ignoring that you getting vaccinated is not about you, but about protecting others. As long as the R value is above 1, every person vaccinated is protecting others more than themselves. Even at 90% effectiveness herd immunity is critical to stopping the pandemic. I fully support people’s right to opt out of social goods like the vaccine, but I’m afraid you should be refused access to many social services your…

> You’re ignoring that you getting vaccinated is not about you, but about protecting others. No I'm not. I'm not at all worried about contracting covid. At my age and health, the science is very clear that COVID-19 poses almost no risk to me. The only reason I'd bother with a vaccine is to protect others. But protecting others doesn't just mean protecting others now. It also means protecting others in the future. Bad…

> I do not believe my government (Canada) is making decisions based on science

As a Canadian currently living in the US, it seems to me like Canada has handled things better out of the two countries... less than half the deaths per capita, and they managed to avoid the hospital overloading that happened in some states. Putting a lid on international travel early on seemed to make a big difference for Canada, as well as having a nationwide quarantine requirement.

I understand the sentiment though. When I visited Canada this year, the border agent read me sections of the Quarantine Act and I was pretty astonished at the extent of federal powers and penalties that had been created on such short notice. The maximum penalty for violating quarantine is a million dollar fine and three years in prison.

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#782

Post by chasing »

petertodd wrote: post #707
chasing wrote: post #554

It's my civic duty to take it as soon as it's offered to me, even if there's some minuscule chance that there will be an averse side effect. That said, I'll likely be towards the end of the line given my health and occupation.

It's my civic duty not to, because people are trying to make it mandatory and we have to set a precedent that mandating it is unacceptable. I honestly think I would have said otherwise a year ago. But after seeing the mishandling of COVID-19, I no longer have faith in my countries ability to use emergency powers scientifically.

You're the kind of guy who doesn't wear a seatbelt and speeds through red lights to protest the government telling you what to do? Or are you smart enough to understand why it's important that we have rules that mandate certain behaviors? (Not that getting vaccinated will actually be mandatory.)

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#783

Post by zahma »

loosescrews wrote: post #718
chasing wrote: post #554

It's my civic duty to take it as soon as it's offered to me, even if there's some minuscule chance that there will be an averse side effect. That said, I'll likely be towards the end of the line given my health and occupation.

I believe it is your civic duty to not go around infecting people. There is more than one way to achieve that.

You’re ignoring the knock-on effects of life during a pandemic. Vaccination is the only way to regain normalcy.

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#784

Post by petertodd »

chasing wrote: post #782
petertodd wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my civic duty not to, because people are trying to make it mandatory and we have to set a precedent that mandating it is unacceptable. I honestly think I would have said otherwise a year ago. But after seeing the mishandling of COVID-19, I no longer have faith in my countries ability to use emergency powers scientifically.

You're the kind of guy who doesn't wear a seatbelt and speeds through red lights to protest the government telling you what to do? Or are you smart enough to understand why it's important that we have rules that mandate certain behaviors? (Not that getting vaccinated will actually be mandatory.)

Mandatory seatbelts happened slowly, not in an emergency, after years of debate and clear scientific research.

You can't compare that to the current situation with COVID-19. Remember that we've accelerated testing so much that we literally don't even know yet if these vaccines actually provide a mortality benefit: there just isn't enough data yet. You can't even compare this situation to other uses of vaccines. Not that I'm even aware of us ever successfully stopping a serious pandemic with a vaccine (with H1N1 the vaccines came too late to do much good, and the pandemic was much less serious than we thought).

Some countries simply can't deploy them yet, as their laws don't allow for emergency approvals: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emergency-vaccine-approval-not-...

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#785

Post by bsder »

humbledrone wrote: post #403
bsder wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, you do know that alcohol is something that pregnant women should avoid? Will you quit drinking alcohol?

I was under the impression that this is common knowledge. Most pregnant women I've known did, indeed, forego alcohol during their pregnancy.

My point was that "unsafe for pregnant women" does not imply "unsafe for not-pregnant or unsafe for not-women".

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#786

Post by laserbeam »

The assumption is a pretty important aspect. Everyone agrees healthcare workers + a few other groups should be among the first to benefit from covid immunity.

But that's what, 5-10% of the population? There will be waiting lines for the other 50-70% of the population needed for herd immunity.

I hope to see us all act in a civil way, waiting our turn and being kind to each other during those times. I will take it when without asking for any special treatment (neither to be inoculated sooner, nor later).

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#787

Post by petertodd »

titanomachy wrote: post #781
petertodd wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re ignoring that you getting vaccinated is not about you, but about protecting others. No I'm not. I'm not at all worried about contracting covid. At my age and health, the science is very clear that COVID-19 poses almost no risk to me. The only reason I'd bother with a vaccine is to protect others. But protecting others doesn't just mean protecting others now. It also means protecting others in the future. Bad…

> I do not believe my government (Canada) is making decisions based on science As a Canadian currently living in the US, it seems to me like Canada has handled things better out of the two countries... less than half the deaths per capita, and they managed to avoid the hospital overloading that happened in some states. Putting a lid on international travel early on seemed to make a big difference for Canada, as well…

> less than half the deaths per capita

There's so much luck involved in those figures at any given point, not to mention the influence of different definitions and testing strategies, that I wouldn't make the claim that Canada is doing better or worse based on stats like that. Just look at the huge differences between different states (and in Canada's case, provinces).

After all, two months ago you might have said that Sweden did much worse than the EU. Yet at this moment, the EU average reported deaths-per-capita is just slightly below Sweden's, with many countries significantly above.

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#788

Post by _5yoy »

mypalmike wrote: post #780
ARandomerDude wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his argument was "government is typically inefficient." is your counterclaim that government is typically efficient?

My claim is that "government bad" and similar broad brush claims about government are completely lacking in content. But to your point, from sending humans into space to clearing snow off the roads, "government" absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things. I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.

> similar broad brush claims about government are completely lacking in content.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_government_respon...

Or, specifically:

> Due to the slow response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city.[10] New Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."[10]

On COVID:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelyncorley/2020/04/10/us-g...

I think that two colossal failures are enough to convey a "The government responds inefficiently and generally poorly to significant humanitarian issues".

> absolutely destroys the private sector in efficiency and effectiveness for many important things.

Maybe. Lots of private sector work is held up specifically _by_ government.

> I'd rather let the CDC work on vaccine distribution protocols than leave it to Taco Bell.

I mean... I agree. But I never suggested we leave vaccines in the hands of chain businesses. I just pointed out that, historically, the US government botches jobs like this spectacularly. The confidence lots of these comments have in the govt efficiently distributing the vaccinations based on need, to me, is not in line with the realities of the US government wrt issues of public health and safety.

Re: Poll: Will you take the Covid vaccine?

#789

Post by mlyle »

_5yoy wrote: post #667
mlyle wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, we don't really know how safe it is to the extent we understand other drugs. But we've bounded the risk to be much, much less than COVID in almost all populations. (This may not end up being true of adolescents, but there's substantial reasons for adolescents to get vaccinated even if we cannot yet prove that the risk is lower than COVID. > I think that this vaccine is a choice, and once it's readily available i…

First, I appreciate you having a legitimate conversation about this stuff instead of dismissing my arguments for the aforementioned political issues. I think skepticism is fair on both sides. > But we've bounded the risk to be much, much less than COVID in almost all populations. Are you sure? And by sure I mean, there is enough data to prove this statement to be true? How? > Generally, a whole lot of the reasons why…

> Are you sure? And by sure I mean, there is enough data to prove this statement to be true? How?

Reasonably sure. Even looking at the low death rate 25-34 population, deaths have been about 4 per 100,000 population with only 15% infected so far; a natural trek to herd immunity will presumably kill 6-12 more per 100k. There will be even greater amounts of morbidity and hospitalization, too, than outright death.

Compare to ~22000 dosed in trials; two of the vaccinated died from causes that don't look related to the vaccine, and four of the placebo group died. This mostly lets us exclude a high death rate from the vaccine. Several in the placebo group ended up hospitalized from severe COVID; none in the vaccine group ended up hospitalized from COVID or vaccine related side effects.

Indeed, the entire judgment call made in emergency use authorization is exactly that: the benefits of the vaccines appear to conclusively outweigh the risks.

> This makes, sense, but is "collective protection" a right now thing? Or is collective protection the goal of a vaccination program over the course of 5-10 years?

It's a "right now" thing. We can get all the way there in 6 months, and get significant benefit in 3 months. To be clear, the former doesn't mean "cases knocked down to zero", but instead infections knocked down by >95%.

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