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Comment by throwaway201103 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway201103

I have zero interest in a vaccine for a disease that I am 99.5% likely to recover from in a few days.

Granted, if I were 80 years old with comorbidities I might be more interested. I'll see how I feel when I reach that point in life.

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Even assuming the estimate of risk given there is correct, and even ignoring the evidence for persistent damage not infrequently arising from non-lethal cases, it’s really odd to me how cavalier people are about that 0.5% risk of death. That’s 1 in 200, so it’s not huge, sure- but if you gave me the choice between running that risk or taking a shot, I know which I would go for. It would even be too high a price for a night out with my friends.

Like, a 1-in-200 chance of losing all the hopes you had for your life and instead dying an agonizing death in some overcrowded ICU, doesn’t sound like it should be treated lightly.

That's assuming I get infected. The positivity rate around here is under 5%, so factor that in.

Other than herd immunity (from vaccination or natural incidence) what do you expect will durably protect you from infection? The positivity rate a year ago was zero, in a year's time it's most unlikely to still be 5%.

if the infection rate is 5% for a year, how many people got infected?

You need to get vaccinated to do your part in preventing those hypothetical 80 year olds you speak of from getting sick

No, their vaccine protects them.

Some people can't get vaccinated due to health reasons or they don't mount a proper immune response. They need you to do your part to establish herd immunity.

I'm in neither of those populations but I really don't see why any healthy 18-25 year old would want to life a single finger for a 60-80 year old, after the latter left the former with a broken economy, overpriced education system and an unaffordable housing market. I mean, it shouldn't be on the younger (inherently politically weaker) generation to re-establish inter-generational solidarity... (You can see the effects of this even pre-vaccine - youngsters partying while oldsters arguing for lock-downs.)

That confuses generalities with specifics. The 60-80 year old that you infect might be someone who agrees with you and worked very hard to oppose those things.

As a 24 year old, because I'm not a shitty human who externalizes my anger at the world on a demographic who might have caused me some issue before.

Taking a vaccine isn't intergenerational solidarity. It's just ethically good. That shouldn't be politicized.

I suspect the number one reason is that most 18-25 year olds actually love their parents and grandparents, and don't want to see them dying an agonizing death from covid.

Clearly this doesn't apply to everyone, but I reckon it applies to most.

Would you get on a plane if it had a 1 in 200 chance of crashing? Why do people keep talking about a 0.5% chance of death as if it's minuscule?

Think about the people who are old, immune compromised, sensitive to something in the vaccine, etc.: vaccines protect them when enough people in the community are vaccinated that the virus cannot spread. You personally may not be at high risk but it’s still non-zero and your decision to get vaccinated will help people who for whatever reason cannot.

It's not about you, it's about the people you will infect during those few days.

I'll be at home in bed, infecting nobody. And yes, I do wear a mask in public. I doubt their efficacy, but's not such an imposition that I will give it the benefit of the doubt. Injecting something of unproven safety into my body is an entirely different matter.

>Injecting something of unproven safety into my body is an entirely different matter.

Well I've got great news for you then! These vaccines will have completed trials for both safety and efficacy by the time they are approved.

>I'll be at home in bed, infecting nobody.

If that were possible, the flu would be eradicated already. You only develop symptoms for most transmissible respiratory infections after you've already been contagious for a day or so.

Maybe, if you're unlucky. In all likelihood, you'll be asymptomatic and spreading it to a bunch of other people without realizing it (which is most of the reason we're in this mess). Then those people do the same, get sick, and/or die.

You'd have probably infected people, including high-risk people, before you experienced symptoms. If you're vaccinated, you ~won't be infecting people.

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