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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

>Vax hesitancy has a social cost

What is the social cost, if there is evidence that this vaccine doesn't prevent infection and/or transmission?

There is evidence that the vaccine significantly (and not just "statistical significance" - I mean really significantly) reduces the risk of severe infection. Many hospitals (including the 3 closest to me, in a state with 70% vaccination) are completely overrun by patients that are predominantly unvaccinated.

Hospitals disproportionately full of unvaccinated patients, resulting in other emergency cases being turned away.

I don't know why I'm responding though, your other comments show that you're not participating here in good faith.

zero.

there is no social cost to the vaccine if it has no effect.

there is a social cost to any vaccine that has only negative effects.

The vaccine we're currently talking about has very limited negative effects but incredibly beneficial positive effects. so the social cost to the vaccine we're talking about is not getting it causes more harm than getting it.

I'm pretty pro covid vaccine. But I don't think your thesis is correct. VAERS tells a very different story. Even if the signal is overstated by an order of magnitude, it's still an incredibly important signal. The CDC is also concerned enough to have ordered Pfizer to undertake a multi year study as well.

We don't do any favors in terms of convincing people to get vaccinated by pretending or minimizing the potential risks. People see through this kind of dishonest behavior.

Re reading the parent, I'd also like to make sure it's clear in my original comment, I'm talking about his hypothetical where there was limited to no effectiveness in preventing infection or transmission. What's the social cost when the vaccine has no effects at all. The social cost of the vaccine is 0.

it's not minimizing risks. I work in computer security you don't have to fear a three letter agency. I am about a certain of that as I am you don't have to fear the vaccine. could there be a three letter agency after you absolutely could you experience negative effects from the vaccine absolutely, with the information I do have I can assert easily they're about as likely (many restrictions apply).

It's not reasonable for my mom to know about or be able to understand the risks of ransomware. Citing VARES without about at years worth of biomedical knowledge is, would be up there with her saying, but ransomware has hidden from this antivirus software before. While technically true, it's not a reason to not use antivirus, or to not trust that antivirus. Anyone who does security research would say the same thing... just like anyone who immunology research is saying about all the Cov19 vaccines.

So your thesis is: "you should trust the experts because you likely aren't smart enough to read a bar chart on your own." ?

No, but I am happy to make that argument if you'd like. Because strictly speaking... yes! I shouldn't value my interpretation over the consensus of domain experts, when I'm not a domain expert. Full stop.

But my argument was, much closer to raw data isn't as valuable as interpreted data. Humans instinctively weight loss with more value than gain. The vaccine will prevent 95% of all clinical infections. But has a 10% negative side effect rate. Which is the more important value in that hypothetical? If you get this vaccine you have a 1 in 10% chance to have a negative side effect... that sounds scary. The negative side effect might much more likely to be flu like symptoms, but that's not what you're gonna remember reading VARES. Where if no one gets the vaccine; IIRC the current case mortality rate is 1% you have a 1% chance to die if you get infected? VS flu like symptoms? That's what I mean. If you're not careful, it's very easy to be tricked by what you read because most people are not gonna hear 10% develop side effects, think flu symptoms. They're gonna thing thrombocytopenia, pericarditis, and anaphylaxis.

It definitely reduces infection risk and transmission risk substantially, even against Delta, and still mostly eliminates hospitalization (which puts health care workers and people who need urgent medical care at risk) and death.

We don't have solid data on whether vaccination substantially reduces transmission risk. It's possible but remains unproven. The vaccines are still very effective at preventing deaths.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1

Hospitals not overrun?

Fair point. An overrun issue can be mitigated if a) hospitals would not dismiss unvaccinated staff thereby leading them to be understaffed (an unstaffed bed = not a bed, which is one reason why hospitals "don't have enough beds"), and b) US medical staff would accept more of the treatment options available in other countries (Japan, India, etc) such as ivermectin.

> Fair point. An overrun issue can be mitigated if a) hospitals would not dismiss unvaccinated staff thereby leading them to be understaffed (an unstaffed bed = not a bed, which is one reason why hospitals "don't have enough beds")

I don't believe this is actually a problem. I think you're either mistaken or making this up. Got a citation I might believe this is actually causing any meaningful effects? Because if not, I think hospital staff have a duty to do everything in their power, within reason, to not harm their patients, or make pandemics worse. Which is exactly what someone working with covid patents would do, turn one infection and 20 maybes into 22 infections.

> US medical staff would accept more of the treatment options available in other countries (Japan, India, etc) such as ivermectin.

I'm super hopeful ivermectin is proven to be a useful antiviral. Which it currently isn't. We're in dire need of useful antivirals, and it's only going to get worse. The US has a nasty history of experimenting on it's population, one we're rightfully very careful to make sure we don't repeat. So pretending ivermectin is anything other than uncontrolled experimentation is dishonest at best. There are times when experimental treatments are justified. Hospital capacity ethically speaking isn't one of them.

This may be me, but I like my first line treatments to be backed by large sample, peer approved research before they're used. Radical treatments for the critically ill is another topic; but that's not what we're talking about here is it?

You cannot seriously be trying to advocate for hospitals being run with unvaccinated staff.

> We treated your asthma attack, sorry about the covid that you got while you were here, hope those two things don't affect each other

I have to agree with the other commenter that you're either not arguing in good faith, or you're so blindly ideologically driven that you've thrown basic reasoning skills out the window.

Unvaccinated staff get sick and die, and staff members of all sorts of vaccination status can get sick and miss work, and also transmit the disease to at risk loved ones.

I would encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can, but vaccinated people can still transmit the disease to others. There is probably some reduction in risk but the magnitude is unclear.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...

If.

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