>Hopefully if anything the pause has shown anti-vax folks that the safety of these vaccines is being taken seriously.
The vast majority of skeptics will not be convinced by this, because their skepticism is not rooted in the science.
The vast majority of skeptics will not be convinced by this, because their skepticism is not rooted in the science.
The rest of us are just parroting them. Yes you can try to be informed and read-up but at the end of the day they're still a layperson.
I work in biotech (vaccines), and outside of my little niche, I'm just your average lay person, just slightly more informed.
That is not science, and it is not what is meant when people talk about trusting the science. Science is empiricism. The science that supports the efficacy of vaccination is the data from the trials that shows a reduction in cases. The science supporting safety is similar. This data is something anyone can understand with sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics. That level of knowledge is somewhat rare, but nowhere near as uncommon as the theoretical knowledge you are describing.
>The science that supports the efficacy of vaccination is the data from the trials that shows a reduction in cases. This data is something anyone can understand with sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics.
Yes you have a bunch of numbers, but this doesn't tell you whether the study protocol was good, nor does it tell you about the qualitative aspects like how well the study protocol was adhered to, how tight the controls were, etc. Naturally, this is not a new problem, and we have various safeguards already in place at various levels. You also need a third party like say the FDA to audit and examine what was done.
>This data is something anyone can understand with sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics.
Yes, but that is not all. People need to understand how clinical trials are conducted, and how for e.g. efficacy numbers can't simply be used to trivially compare two vaccine candidates.
They didn't permit a singular use of "they" until like 2017. Sometimes they get stuff wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯