It's not an anti-vaccine attitude, just healthy skepticism considering how much pressure there is to get this out and into distribution.
The fatality rate of COVID-19 and the rate of serious complications is high enough that it easily dwarfs the chance of any potential rare side effects of the vaccines.
We know quite a bit about their short term safety. It's impossible to know for sure if there is any long term side effect. But that is probably a risk we have to take to get past the immediate threat of covid-19.
If this is indeed the point of contention - balancing the risk of adverse outcomes from a rushed vaccine vs those from a virus, I think it's inaccurate to say that the risks from this virus, understood generally across the population, are "very high". The likelihood of contracting it is of course very high, but the risk of adverse effects are only high for a relatively small stratum of the population.
It makes sense to reserve "very high" for pathogens like HIV or Ebola, not SARS-CoV-2. For a very large majority of the population, SARS-CoV-2 has approximately equal risk to the four seasonally circulating coronaviruses, so even a small risk from an overlooked data point might be significant.
We need to reach herd immunity one way or another, so I'm not sure the discussion of individual risk is the right one. With no data being available for patients to examine ourselves, it's hard to even know how to make these decisions.
IMO the risks of an rushed new vaccine are much higher
Do you have an actual source for that? People keep repeating it over and over but I've seen no evidence that COVID-19 carries particularly high risk compared to other infectious diseases.
I think a comment on HN from about a week or so maybe?
>In our paper, we show that the risk appears to be limited to only one vaccine (Pandemrix®). During the first year after vaccination, the relative risk of narcolepsy was increased 5 to 14-fold in children and adolescents and 2 to 7-fold in adults. The vaccine attributable risk in children and adolescents was around 1 per 18,400 vaccine doses. Studies from Finland and Sweden also appear to demonstrate an extended risk of narcolepsy into the second year following vaccination, but such conclusions should be interpreted with a word of caution due to possible biases.
Edit: it's funny that the comment above gets downvoted just for asking a question. Great world we live in. We didn't learn anything from the past. Blaming and shaming gay people in the AIDS epidemic, some previous hastily released vaccines that caused the anti vaccine current to gain momentum (just look in the nordics at the current willingness to get a COVID vaccine, something like 1 in 4 maybe)
I honestly hate anti-vaxxers with incredible intensity now. Before they were an annoyance, now they have destroyed all intelligent discourse on this current topic.
For logical concerns, another example is an earlier, mouse brain derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine. Pulled, due to suspected prions causing brain swelling, and death. It should be noted that these effects were not seen until years after a peron received vaccination.
It does not matter that current vaccine $x does not "work that way", instead, it is well known that some vaccines will be troublesome.
This is not anti-vaxxer, I have all standard vaccinations, for they are tested, years of use behind them, safer than the alterative.
Yet it is so hard to find accurate info, everything is filled with crazy, emotionally based screaming and decision making, it's infuriating.
Source: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/snabbkollen/novus-fler-vill-ta-co...
[1] survey done on November 19 by Novus
In other words those who got narcolepsy were nonetheless better off with the vaccine than if they had caught the flu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix
> The increased risk of narcolepsy due to vaccination was 1 in 18400 or 0.005%
https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/swine-flu-deaths-examined/
seems to state an infection fatality rate of the 2009 H1N1 of 0.026%
So anyone under 30 has a dramatically lower chance of dying due to covid, and therefore would likely have a higher risk of a serious side effect when compared to the risks of contracting covid.
It's an interesting dilemma, for the good of public health you have to have certain populations actually increase their own personal risk, at the benefit of the majority overall.
It's a difficult problem, because inevitably there will be harm initially if you allow free discussion. But over time the harm will be less in comparison to complete shutdown of any public conversation about the vaccines.
If the anti-vaxxers don't want the COVID vaccine, so be it. Let them pay with their health. That'll be the best course of action for beating down the quacks who will oppose any vaccinations.
1) It is much easier to spread misinformation than to collect facts and spread real data
2) Mistrust is insidious and spreads, allowing anti-vaxers then goes into other forms of anti institutional ideologies.
3) Herd immunity. If some kid has leukimia and cannot get vaccinated, he survives thanks to everyone else being vaccinated. Some 30 year old reactionary being an anti-vaxxer and getting covid and surviving it would be ok if he was not a vector of infection to the most vulnerable in society.
So in my opinion teaching people basic scientific literacy (so they can check primary sources like published research), and fostering scientific respect and trust would do us wonders as a society. We put a man on the moon, and reduced child mortality by 90% by trusting science, why allow people who think the theory of gravity is "just a theory" spread their thoughts.
100% true, I was not thinking far enough on this.
> You can develop resistance naturally. When your body is exposed to a virus or bacteria, it makes antibodies to fight off the infection. When you recover, your body keeps these antibodies. Your body will defend against another infection. This is what stopped the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil. Two years after the outbreak began, 63% of the population had had exposure to the virus. Researchers think the community reached the right level for herd immunity.
And if you do talk to a person like that, no press release is a problem for them, they see right through it.
Individual instances can be found, and errors do happen. However the idea that the biggest pharma companies, integrated by incredibly talented and hardworking people, and every safety institution (The american FDA, the EU security council etc) are all so compromised as to miss real problems and purposefully endanger the population is in my humble opinion absurd.
What is the societal advantage on letting a baker share his uninformed opinion on epidemiology? Why let software engineers discuss the safety standards of the medical field? A ton of the situations and problems are heavily skewed to high technical knowledge of narrow field.
I have no idea about how many volunteers are a good number to run a vaccine experiment, I have no idea what a good control group vaccine looks like or why use HepB and not measles. Me sharing my opinions on this topic only pollutes the conversation when I do not have the background knowledge to form an opinion on it.
If you look for information on this topics it would be much better for society if my blog is not there and there is information from actual doctors and epidemiologists talking about it.
Second, as any right free speech comes with certain responsibilities. My point is education people in using their right appropriately.
Lets get all Spiderman, great power comes great responsability. The right to free speech comes with the responsability to know when to shut up. Letting professionals speak and have the floor during events that concern their domain knowledge is a basic pre-requisite for the good ideas to flourish.
^ That's what you sound like.