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Comment by schwartzworld | Hacker News Reader

I like the author's explanation for why he and his wife haven't gotten vaccinated: her doctor told her to wait until after she had the baby, which is understandable I guess. But why does that mean that the husband wouldn't get vaccinated? Why aren't they worried about him bringing covid home to his pregnant wife? The authors claim that he supports getting vaccinated, but only doesn't support vaccine mandates, is not congruous with his actions. He has no reason not to do it other than being a CHUD.

Of course there is pressure from the government to get vaccinated. We're talking about public health. It's not a personal decision anymore than the MMR or polio vaccines.

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>It's not a personal decision anymore than the MMR or polio vaccines.

I am tired of this false equivalence. Shall we compare them?

The MMR and polio vaccines:

- are very effective

- give lifelong immunity

- target very dangerous diseases

- diseases which are particularly dangerous to children

The Corona vaccines:

- are mildly effective (they reduce symptoms certainly, but infections are still very common among the vaccinated, and so is spread)

- immunity fades rapidly

- target a disease which is not that dangerous

- and is particularly not-dangerous for children

I can see why it may be justifiable to mandate MMR and polio shots (though actually, where I live neither are mandated). The people most at risk (children) are not able to give consent, so it is arguably justifiable for the state to override parental wishes in such cases. I cannot see how it is justifiable to mandate the corona vaccines. The people who are actually at serious risk are perfectly capable of giving consent -- or not. Forcing it is a violation of bodily autonomy, pure and simple.

"Public health" cannot be a universal excuse to tell people what to do. Obesity is also a major risk factor for coronavirus; are we also going to bar fat people from participation in society, on the excuse that they are burdening the health system?

- effectiveness.

The COVID vaccines are 95%+ effective against the original COVID virus. This is better than some of the vaccines we routinely give out, and worse than some.

- lifelong immunity

One of our routine vaccinations (tetanus) needs booster shots every ten years. Some routine vaccinations need 4 doses before effectiveness. And this is for diseases that aren't mutating.

The COVID "waning immunity" story is a red herring. All vaccinations only produce antibodies for a few months -- B cells etc provide immunity after a few months for COVID and every other viral vaccine.

- target a disease which is not that dangerous

COVID has a fatality rate between 0.2 and 1.0 %. This is higher than the death rate for measles and many other diseases we routinely vaccinate for.

- and is particularly not-dangerous for children

700 dead children in the US would disagree. It's not a high rate of death but is similar to other causes (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsr1804754)

If we had to live with that rate of childhood death we could, but vaccines are so cheap and side-effect free we shouldn't have to.

The original COVID virus is practically defunct. It was outcompeted by other strains. Effectiveness is sharply declining.

Ten years is much longer than ten months, which is how long the corona vaccines have been around.

Waning immunity is not a red herring. The entire mass vaccination strategy was predicated on the idea that everyone would get one or two doses and the virus would be defeated and we go back to normal. Spare me this motte/bailey sophistry.

Measles: again you conflate a disease that attacks children with a disease that does not. The 0.2-1% mortality figure for measles is almost entirely concentrated among children. Rate of child death from corona is negligible. You bring up 700 dead children from corona -- yes this is a tragedy, but it is comparable to influenza. A bad flu season will see something like 500-600 under-18s die in USA over course of a year (and is your 700 figure for a single year, or summed across both pandemic years?). I am sorry but we cannot shut down society for this.

Measles has a death rate of 1 in 1000 children. That's massively lower than COVID, which is some unknown amount higher than 2 in 1000 of the entire population.

I didn't say we shut down for 700 deaths. But that number is enough to justify minor interventions, like masking until a vaccine is available for every one, and then vaccinating broadly.

Are minor interventions like described in your comment justifiable for 70 deaths? Or 7 deaths?

If current vaccines are so effective, explain what is happening in Singapore please, with 85%+ of whole population (not adults) vaccinated.

You mean the Singapore with 300 total deaths out of a population of 6 million?

85% would likely be enough to stop the original COVID variant, but Delta is much more transmissible and likely needs a 90% vaccination rate. And that 90% has to be widespread -- pockets of lower vaccination rates can incubate the disease.

And until we vaccinate children, every school is an incubator.

I highly doubt 90% is going to apply as a new goalpost.

Yes, it reduces ICU and deaths in risk groups A LOT, but it doesn't explain forcing or pressuring people out of risk groups to vaccinate.

There's more information constantly flowing in now, how under reported all the different complications and side effects vaccines can cause actually is now. And why is it under reported? Because of the whole propaganda of "vaccines are safe and effective, can't do you harm, if you believe otherwise you are anti-science moron".

People even if they have long lasting side effects they are ridiculed when they go to doctor's and same with their families. No reporting going on about this at all. I've read over 1000 anecdotal stories by now, where similar set of circumstances happen, although if you read those stories it would be obvious that these are not coincidences, imagination of people or anything remotely like that.

It's great that a recent video came out where Kyle is interviewed by Dr John Campbell about his experience with doctors.

If they were trying to hide vaccine side effects, they would have hidden the pericardia side effect. The side effect rate is close enough to the baseline pericardia rate and the consequences minor enough that it would have been easy to hide. They delayed the vaccine roll out to children a couple of months to further verify that. That really pisses me off, because rolling the kids vaccine out a couple months earlier would have a saved a good number of lives.

If you want to talk about side effects, lets talk about the side effects of COVID. I've got a friend with Chronic Fatigue as a side effect from H1N1, a really nasty disease. She's on long term disability and the economy so all of us insurance customers and taxpayers are paying for her support for 25+ years instead of her being gainfully employed. Widespread long COVID is going to cause massive suffering to people and the economy.

I'm not sure if anyone is trying to hide vaccine side effects, but here are few things I'm convinced of:

1. Post vaccine long term side effects are severely under reported. I don't know by how much, though.

2. Doctors generally don't take patients seriously who claim they have some issues from vaccines. These rarely get reported.

I also think that covid is terrible and likely has higher chance of causing long term damage, and this is why I have elected to stay home. I'm staying home until there's more awareness of both, long covid, and vaccine complications and more info about treating either of those.

You might also want to take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7inaTiDKaU

I have read over probably 1,000 anecdotal stories right now, and there's similar pattern every time, despite symptoms being so similar, doctors rarely believe vaccines could be the cause.

Is it possible that there are unknown side effects? Sure. Is it likely that they are more common or more severe than pericarditis? No.

The world has administered 4B doses of COVID vaccines. Risks have been bounded to a pretty low level.

I'm conflicted about this.

So the research group React19, for instance which is dealing with vaccine complications since end of 2020, supposedly has 5,000 people it has been in contact with (from where supposedly 6 people had committed suicide - according to Kyle, who's also been talking with the group). They have conducted a survey, there was a following question:

Are you the only one in your family to have a persistent adverse reaction to the vaccine? Yes: 142 No: 13

So out of 155 respondents, 13 had another family member who had persistent adverse reaction. What is the average count of family members per people? This implies a lot more frequent persistent adverse reactions from vaccines that is generally reported so far.

At least I would like this being addressed somehow.

And similarly looking at anecdotal stories, there are often couples who have had persistent adverse effects, and there was just now a video story John Campbell showed where 2 training partners together were diagnosed with one pericarditis and the other one with myocarditis. If there's multiple people together getting this diagnosis with the frequency I'm seeing, it seems it's generally under reported.

According to the same survey top symptoms are

1) Fatigue

2) Brain fog

and heart issues only comes next.

I definitely don't want 1) and 2) either, so I'm just waiting for someone to address all of this.

Hi is there other react19 groups in other countries like in NZ. Would this group promote setting up other similar groups in other western countries like NZ

Please can a group like this be set up in all western countries ie NZ

Many people believe that autoimmune and/or psycho-somatic disorders are vastly underdiagnosed in the populace, that there are millions of Americans undiagnosed with those disorders. If so, having a few thousand coincidentally appear after vaccination is likely just that, coincidence.

And those are nasty diseases. I have one friend with Guillaim Barre as a side effect of H1N1, one friend with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as a side effect of H1N1 and a cousin with Lupus.

So doing all you can to avoid these diseases is smart.

Which means getting COVID and flu vaccines. Even if the vaccine causes these chronic diseases, it does so at a very low rate compared to the actual disease. Millions of Americans already have long COVID. Herd immunity may eventually protect future generations of Americans and current citizens of New Zealand and Singapore, but it's not going to protect the current citizens of the US.

Shouldn't it be a person behaviour dependant decision - whether to take the vaccine?

E.g. for example, currently I calculate myself to be near people that in theory it would be possible to catch covid only around 5-6 hours per week, 3h from it outside, and 3h inside gym at times when gym is fairly empty and it's easy for me to hold a 3m+ distance from everyone. Besides that I work from home, and order everything in.

Considering everyday infection rate I can calculate from that what my chances of getting covid are based on how much I think other people on average spend around other people, or their families. This would be back of the napkin calculation, but wouldn't that be fair to assess chances of getting covid?

These may be some odd coincidences -- although personally based on my readings of those anecdotal stories I don't see how. But even if let's say they might be coincidences, how can I know for sure?

I also thought and am aware of the fact if there's a disease that is diagnosed at least e.g. 365,000 times a year and if all people would eat ice-cream once a year, then there would be 1,000 people getting that diagnosis just the next day, but I feel like the patterns are too similar for the stories I've read.

My wife (a physician) has heard tons of stories from people who were in very strict isolation for 6, 9, 12, 15 months and then did Thanksgiving or Christmas at their kids house once, got COVID and ended up in the hospital.

In comparison you're at much higher risk than they were since you're not in isolation. COVID is endemic in the US and most of the world, so your chance of eventually getting it is approximately 100%.

Once you get it, your risk of dying is between 1 and 20 in 1000 depending on your age and risk factors. Your risk of getting long COVID is approximately 1 in 10. Most long COVID isn't chronic illness, but some is, and it's awful.

In comparison, your risk of a mild heart infection from the vaccine is less than 1 in 100,000 and any other risks are less than that.

And for prevalency, still, there seems to be too many situations where people in the same family or partners together have got issues. How would there be so many occurrences if it was truly so rare?

I have seen this from many anecdotal stories, but also here's one that is available as a video post - for added legitimacy:

https://youtu.be/Gz0I_v-ihsE?t=1395

This is for heart issues.

Besides that with most of those stories it goes hand in hand that doctors don't know what to diagnose, or they have no idea how to treat what they are seeing and it doesn't end up get reported as well -- this is what I've seen as a pattern from all the stories I've read.

By the way, I really wish I could just do the shot, since I'm tired of being afraid as well, so if someone managed to convince me that I'm worrying about nothing, it would be great.

I can't convince you you're worried about nothing. All I can do is convince you that you have to choose between a risk with low odds and a risk with high odds.

I need some resource that would convince me since this has taken a huge mental toll on me. Not to mention the fact that I'm researching this daily and my thoughts are focused around it, I also feel the pressure from government and all the people being against me. The feeling like I'm to blame for the pandemic is immense.

For example with the arguments that you made, I don't see how it's mathematically, statistically or in any way likely/possible, that heart inflammation rate is just 1 out of 100,000 or less.

The reason being I've seen reports of multiple people getting the diagnosis after the vaccine together, as one example in the video that I showed.

Back of the napkin math again: Let's say we have 2 billions of vaccinated people. And let's divide this into 2 groups of 1 bil, and let's say that for each person there's one other person in the other group that they are most connected or tied to, e.g. it could be said that they are partners or a couple. Because the way I've tried to understand how serious the issue could be is whether in those anecdotes I see both people having issues.

If the likelihood is 1 out of 100,000, then we would expect from group A to end up with 1B/100K, I would expect to see 10,000 affected people over the world.

Now, for each of those 10,000 they have a partner from the group B. The chances for each of their partners to have this same issue should be 1/100,000.

So this comes to roughly there being only a chance of 10% (around 9.5% to be a bit more precise) for there to be any partners with long term issue. So we have this anecdotal video from YouTube. Is whoever sent the video doing a hoax? And the other anecdotal stories with couples/partners both having long term issues, are all of those hoaxes?

I'm in one of the age groups and genders having the highest chances of heart inflammation issues and one at the same time one of the lowest to have issues with covid.

I agree that long covid is a real danger, but just recently some study came out that vaccines may not reduce chances of long covid, just hospitalisations/deaths.

I mean there's too much data that doesn't make sense, the anecdotal stories I'm seeing don't make sense based on usual claims for all the rates and Pfizer studies and everything that I'm seeing.

How can I do anything, if none of this seems to make sense? I feel like I'm slowly going crazy.

I'm also not against corona vaccines, but I'm definitely against making them mandatory or having mandatory pressure on this. If it had been 10+ years on market and known to be safe, I would maybe consider it, but there's data and reports coming in of risks that were never mentioned in the early 2021. What other risks aren't we aware of yet, if it took us so long time to find out about those.

And, I would be fine with using a cheap testing kit each morning before going out.

But I want to be able to choose to have enough data to feel comfortable about taking this vaccine. Is that too much to ask?

> are mildly effective

Are very effective in preventing serious disease

> target a disease which is not that dangerous

The 700k dead in the US might disagree (I mean, those that didn't die neck deep in the mud believing it to be a mere puddle)

They don't reliably stop you from contracting it, they don't reliably stop you from spreading it, they don't reliably stop symptoms. They are "mildly effective" by any reasonable comparison to any decent pre-existing vaccine (no, the flu vaccine doesn't count). And they are getting less effective by the day. Already we are hearing talk of third, fourth, fifth booster shots -- for a vaccine that is less than a year old. Have you ever heard of such a thing before, for any other shot?

As for 700k deaths -- yes, 700k mostly old, mostly already unhealthy deaths in a country of 320 million people, tallied across two years. This is not a civilization-ending plague. Moreover, almost all of the at-risk demographic already has been vaccinated. So if they are as effective as you imply, what is the justification for forcing it on everyone else? You cannot simultaneously claim that they are so effective, and at the same time that everyone must be vaccinated in order to protect the at-risk people who are themselves already vaccinated. It is a deranged contradiction.

2.7% of the population is immunocompromised. That's who the vaccine mandates are protecting. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/871290

As the father two premature children who were highly immunocompromised for the first 6 months of their life or so, this is a very personal issue.

That immunocompromised portion of the population are not going to be protected either way. Did you not read what I said? The vaccine does not prevent transmission! Herd immunity will not happen with such a leaky vaccine.

The vaccine doesn't have to prevent transmission for herd immunity to occur. It just has to push the R-value for spread under 1. And it does that very effectively. It's not particular effective at preventing breakthrough infections from spreading the disease, but it is quite effective at preventing infection in the first place.

> They don't reliably stop you from contracting it, they don't reliably stop you from spreading it, they don't reliably stop symptoms.

You might want to look up the actual efficiencies of common vaccines (and how many iterations did it take to get them to that point)

> Have you ever heard of such a thing before, for any other shot?

A vaccine that was proven to be reasonably effective and with minor side effects in only one year? It's the result of several decades of innovation.

Or do you think every previous vaccine was perfect?

> It's not a personal decision anymore than the MMR or polio vaccines.

The world will be made by the people browsing HN. Programmers will be the new blue collar workers whose decisions will impact our infrastructure more than almost anybody.

Holding views like this is a scary proposition for the new world we're entering. I am deeply disturbed by how pronounced the desire for authoritarianism is among this group of individuals.

We are supposed to be better than this. Free software is all about freedom - not conformity. It is about having the freedom to maintain one's privacy and not having to explain yourself for wanting to maintain that position. The code is the code, but motivations for that code are wholly irrelevant.

Instead we appear to be drifting in the direction of "open source" - full of wining babies who demand things from the select few with the actual talent with complete disregard for other people's rights, motivations, talents, and interests.

It's a miracle that installing McAfee Antivirus software on our computers was never a government-mandated law.

Just a reminder.

Medical consent is your right. And you have the right to say no.

Anyone using fear and negativity is no better than a sleazy pick up artist.

Of course you have the right to say no, but businesses and governments have the right to limit where you can go since your actions will affect others.

> He has no reason not to do it other than being a CHUD.

There are perfectly valid concerns being raised by experts in the field.

If you don't have time to watch this, there are slides. https://rumble.com/vnbv86-winning-the-war-against-therapeuti...

More slides: https://www.skirsch.com/covid/All.pdf

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