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Comment by mberning | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. I am not anti-vax at all, but I am not eager to take a new class of vaccine developed in less than a year. The state government here has been paying for TV and radio ads nonstop with various doctors talking about how the vaccine is “safe and effective”. Even though it has been beta tested on millions of people I don’t think we can draw any conclusions about long term safety at this point. I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive.

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The new class of vaccine was developed years and years ago for SARS 1 fwiw, was tested and even approved. But by the time it was ready there was no demand. It's not actually new.

There is a big difference between being known about and tested in a lab and being mass produced, approved, and administered to millions of patients. The covid vaccines are the first of this class to be broadly rolled out.

>I also think the effectiveness is highly questionable given the number of high profile people that have been vaccinated and still tested positive.

Sure, the vaccine appears less effective to the delta variant. But that's not a reason to avoid it.

One of the long term effects of not getting the vaccine is death. The recent stories coming out of hospitals where people are dying even though there's a vaccine available is tragic. Let's hope it doesn't happen to you.

I now know 2 people who could have gotten vaccinated and did not, then died of covid. I know another who went to Florida on vacation, contracted covid, and is now stuck in a hotel room hopefully recovering (I wonder about hotel staff). It all seems so tragic and also so maddening, it could have all been avoided. The vaccine could also have prevented the pain and suffering of their remaining families.

Let’s be clear. There is a slim chance of death, particularly if you are younger and/or in good health. There is also a chance that you take the vaccine, get covid, and die anyway. Although I am extremely doubtful that those cases will be talked about very much.

Slim = 1 / 100 unvaccinated.

Still want to gamble? I would never take that risk, unless forced.

And was. Caught covid when the chance of death was about 7 percent. Damn near ended up in a hospital. Scary shit. Chance of longer term symptoms is higher, 5 percent maybe?

Chance of death on a vaccination is much lower, 1 / maybe 100,000 very worst case?

Now, here is the hard part:

Chance of infection?

Well, if we vaccinated everyone, that will go to very good odds. Many may never be infected.

However, since we currently are not doing that, virus mutation means odds are great you will eventually get covid. And it could mutate into forms that are worse and or that nullify vaccinations and we start this crap over.

It is in the world now. We did not catch it in time.

More vaccinated people = less mutation = lower risk for all humans.

This is a when and what risk to take discussion. Very few will avoid this entirely. Odds are overwhelming that will not be you.

Good luck!

When you get covid, do you want to face it with or without the benefit of science?

The chance is not slim. It's a chance of 0.6-1%. That's worse than many wars.

Without vaccines you're basically guaranteed to catch it eventually.

The risk that you die while fully vaccinated is tremendously low.

Chance of death is recovered people / dead people. Outcomes, not cases in flight.

About 1 percent now. Was as high as 10 before our medicine improved.

Many are dividing dead people by infected people. This understates the risk due to infections in progress are not yet outcomes, which biases the risk assessment to the very best, idealized case. The assumption is nobody else infected will die, which is a false assumption.

With a vaccine on board, chance of death is a mere, small fraction of 1 percent.

For perspective, ask poker players how sure of a thing 1 in 100 is. That hits way more often than people think!

Definitely, 1/100 is an insane risk. No one on their right mind would take it.

Also, there is much more than 1% chance of very serious life long complications.

Great point! Numbers are hard to get on that, but 1/10 would not surprise me.

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