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Comment by veltas | Hacker News Reader

What are the hard truths?

Good question, it appears the writer is praising the Danish gov't for doing the following:

> And Frederiksen clearly acknowledged uncertainty. “We stand on unexplored territory in this situation,” she said. “Will we make mistakes? Yes, we will.”

> Danish health authorities talked clearly about severe, potentially fatal, side effects when they suspended the use of specific vaccines, even though the side effects are extremely rare.

And that is it.

Vaccines are not risk-free.

No one said they weren't

They certainly weren't talking about the risks and side effects when telling the entire country the only way to get your life and rights back is to take the vaccine. The message was: get the vaccine, get the vaccine, get the vaccine, do your moral duty

Because the risks of not getting the vaccine are orders of magnitude higher than the risks of getting the vaccine. It's absolutely insane that were still having this conversation at this point.

But, see, people don't work that way. If you say that the risk of dying from Covid is 1%, and the risk from the vaccine is 0.001%, (at least some) people can look at those numbers and figure out what's reasonable to do. But if you say that the risk from Covid is 1% and the vaccine is "safe", then people think you mean the risk from the vaccine is 0, and they say, "You're lying; my cousin's co-worker's nephew got sick from it", and they will refuse to take it.

Be honest about the risk of the vaccine. It's less, but it's not zero. Tell people that - all of that. Neither BSing them nor trying to force them has worked; try telling them the truth. Officially, consistently, tell them all of the truth - the risk as well as the safety.

[Edit: Of course, telling them the truth may not actually work either... at least, not if you define "work" as "they get the vaccine". But even so, at least they had the information to make a real choice.]

That's pretty much what most health authorities are saying though if you read more than 5 words of their statements? Starting with the AZ problems (which obviously weren't a thing in the US since it just stockpiled AZ, but a big topic in Europe) it's pretty much always has been "problems are rare, we continue to recommend it based on the benefit being way larger than the risk" (except in the countries that decided they don't evaluate it that way and restricted/stopped use). Same now with myocarditis. And promptly the complaints shift to "they are lying, the numbers are actually way worse than they say!".

If you go to the CDC website about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,[1] there's a banner at the top of the page about myocarditis. Later down the page, there are sections titled "Who Should Get Vaccinated," "Who Should NOT Get Vaccinated" and "Possible Side Effects." None of this has been covered up.

I don't think the public health authorities are to blame here. I would blame the politicians and media figures who have discovered that being anti-vax or vaccine "skeptical" boosts their popularity.

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

OK, but also blame the politicians who are all "Thou Shalt Vax".

Telling people "this can cause myocarditis, and here's the people who should not get it" is telling people the truth. But that and a vaccine mandate cannot coexist without people rebelling against the mandate (which is in fact happening).

Part of telling people the truth is letting them decide what to do with the information. "Here, I'm trusting you with the truth, now you have to decide the way I think you should" doesn't fly, especially when the truth is a mixed bag. ("Who should not get vaccinated" tells you that the truth is in fact a mixed bag.)

The problem is that public health measures require participation from the entire community. Extreme individualism prevents rational public health policy, and becomes antisocial at some point. Unless someone has a medical reason not to get vaccinated, they should get vaccinated, as part of their responsibility to the people they live around.

Not for young people

Yes, even for young people. Even when you look at the side-effects of the vaccine, they tend to be more common among people who get the virus. For example, myocarditis is several times more common among young people who get CoVID-19 than among young people who get vaccinated.[1] Given that everyone is eventually going to get infected or vaccinated, getting vaccinated probably significantly decreases the risk of myocarditis among young people.

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02740-y

What about the over hundred million people who have already acquired natural immunity? Do you think they should also take the risk of vaccine side effects even though they already have immunity that is more robust than the vaccine can provide by itself?

1. The risks of vaccination are minuscule, so for most people, there's no reason not to get vaccinated.

2. Some countries treat people with proof of prior infection the same as vaccinated people. I would approach this practically. From what I understand, natural immunity is more variable than vaccine-acquired immunity, so maybe people with low antibody titers should not be treated as immune unless they get vaccinated.

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