Show HN: Things you never worry about doing that are riskier than the AZ vaccine | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Things you never worry about doing that are riskier than the AZ vaccine

whatoneinamillionmeans.com

17 pointsjonplackett20 comments

Without clicking, I would bet my next paycheck that the author is not a woman aged under 55.

Does the presentation of statistics make it feel as if the author is diminishing the suffering of others?

Actual question.

First, which others? A friend in the US drove several hours to be vaccinated, maybe three hours each way, which adds up to the same risk as from the vaccination according to the site. Are you asking whether it diminishes his suffering due to the risk en route to/from vaccination or his suffering due to risk on the site? Or are you asking whether quantifying the two risks diminishes suffering?

Was referring to the OP's bet that author was not a woman, perhaps implying that author was insensitive to the suffering of the (mostly) women at risk of vaccine side effects.

Indeed. It's almost similar to how old married men often have harsh stances on abortion rights.

I see. The question still stands, but lightly modified — insensitive to which suffering of women? The suffering of women in traffic accidents vs. the suffering of women with thrombosis? Or insensitive because quantifying/comparing the two?

This is nuts. Like, zealotry, religious level nuts.

That isn't my intention no.

This isn't about suffering really. The chances are that no suffering will take place from having a vaccine.

What I'm trying to do is remind people that their lives are not currently risk free, so comparing their perceived current zero risk of suffering to the now-real risk of suffering from getting vaccinated is an incorrect comparison. We are all, every day, at risk of something bad happening to us, and it's this amount of current risk we should be comparing any new risk to, not our perceived zero risk.

The increase in risk from being vaccinated is very small compared to that, but more importantly compared to the benefits of us all getting vaccinated.

Oddly enough, it is not a gender phenomenon worth discussing that men over 55 have a significantly increased risk of dying from Covid-19.

So, everyone has their own preferences, don't they?

Is it the subtle gloating of the weak?

Ageism?

But don't worry, in Brazil the dead of Covid-19 are much younger, although there is still a gender gap in favour of females.

Brazil is one of mankind's breeding laboratories for fantastic new variants, because of delayed vaccination and delayed or insufficient quarantine.

So just lets wait and see.

That is true, but I made it to reassure my mum, who got the AZ vaccine.

Now do this for "Things you never worry about doing that are riskier than COVID."

Difficult. It's a list of considered-innocuous things.

Engage in risky behaviour wrt. covid and then meet your mother, father, older neighbours, and they're at real risk, even though you aren't. There aren't many innocuous things you do that cause your mother significant risk of death. (Or lasting mental problem, if we want to consider other possble effects.)

Can we have the same for covid.

For young healthy people this virus is not something that justifies the media hysteria. I believe that for under 30's you have more chance of an adverse reaction to the vaccine than to the virus.

Disclaimer: I don’t have any data, so take the following with a grain of salt.

I don’t think so. First, roughly a third or so of the people in Germany are considered to be at a higher risk of Covid (not only due to age, but smoking or obesity). Depending on where you live this might vary, but it’s not as if only a small part of the population is at risk. This is why - even if you’re healthy - it’s an important topic because we as a society need to take care of each other. Second: there are young healthy people that are suffering from the effects of COVID for months. A friend of mine used to run and now struggles with walking for a couple of minutes, he wasn’t safe from the virus after all.

Despite that, the risk of getting COVID is quite low, so theres no reason for panic.

>it’s an important topic because we as a society need to take care of each other.

We are not taking care of each other with this approach though, quite the opposite, we are destroying small businesses, putting people into depression, millions are being plunged into extreme poverty, making people lives not worth living. No country has ever improved its health by becoming poorer.

I had this same discussion yesterday with someone about the risk and how it compares with other daily activities.

Most people (myself included) have a hard time judging risk for this type of stuff.

And it is extraordinary times in that the vaccines were developed in record time and are out in the wild in record time. Which I still find amazing. I would still take the shot though.

I guess you think you know what the risk is. I don't think you do. Usually we determine that with multi-year trials, but we didn't do that this time. Usually the trials are done on the kinds of people who might actually need to be vaccinated, but this time governments are eager to do mass vaccination of people who aren't vulnerable, even children. If there is significant harm, it may be years before we know what it is.

It seems completely wrong that they are trialling experimental vaccines on children, where the risk is almost certainly greater than from covid. Absolutely disgusting.

I think you're exactly right. It's not medically justifiable to administer this vaccine to children, since they almost certainly will not benefit from it, and it would expose them to some unknown amount of risk. In other words, mass-administering this vaccine to children would amount to a medical atrocity, mass medical malpractice. HN seems to be OK with this.

>HN seems to be OK with this.

They do seem to be judging by your (and my) downvotes.

It's not like anything ever went wrong in the past with things pushing experimental vaccines onto children.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-sho...

Add into this the fact everyone is basically being coerced into taking it by threatening not to be able to do things, the way this pandemic has been handled is an absolute disgrace. I have lost a lot of faith in the scientific establishment, and big tech even more as a result of this.

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