Mistrust of a Coronavirus Vaccine Could Imperil Widespread Immunity | Hacker News Reader

Mistrust of a Coronavirus Vaccine Could Imperil Widespread Immunity

nytimes.com

2 pointsghaff6 comments

There are lessons to be learned from the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-1007_article

If it turns out that there are side effects that weren't discovered due to rushed testing the fallout will be ugly, no one is going to trust public officials in anything. We had a preview with the dengue vaccine on the Phillippines: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/dengue-vaccine-fiasc...

And, arguably, Lymerix. Although the situation with that is... complicated.

The Dengue vaccine is still on the market in various places including the US AFAIK for certain demographics/prior exposure. Some tradeoffs are worth it. It's almost a given that any near-term vaccine almost certainly hasn't been adequately tested by historical standards, "we" (or at least the government) will accept side effects at a level that wouldn't normally be considered acceptable, and both private and public institutions will require vaccination to fully participate in society.

Lymerix is a good comparison. There were justified concerns about the vaccine provoking an autoimmune reaction in some patients, and meanwhile tick bites can be prevented through simple actions - cover arms and legs, stay out of long grass, use insect repellent. It's difficult to argue for a vaccine when other measures work equally well and pose less risk.

Meanwhile the first world has reduced the spread of coronavirus through public health interventions but America can't follow.

There are some analogs but they may be different than you think.

>meanwhile tick bites can be prevented

I'm careful but I (normally) do a fair bit of hiking and live on a large property surrounded by fields. I am careful but I still find ticks on myself every now and then and am bitten from time to time.

One can certainly be careful about reducing virus contact at the cost of considerable inconvenience. But there's a lot of evidence that new outbreaks are still flaring up in many places and that many locales end up going through a rough patch sooner or later. So I'm not sure it's fair to say that if everyone just took some basic precautions and otherwise carried on as usual, we'd be just fine even without a (potentially somewhat risky) vaccine.

This is the Surgeon General of the United States on 2020-02-29:

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm"

I don't trust anything the USA government says anymore, and will not get any Covid vaccine in the USA.

Assuming a vaccine does get developed, this could get very ugly because schools and companies will require it. As they probably should, depending on the circumstances, but it will likely create a large class of people/families who are faced with what is (to them) an intolerable choice.

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