It's my civic duty to take it as soon as it's offered to me, even if there's some minuscule chance that there will be an averse side effect.
That said, I'll likely be towards the end of the line given my health and occupation.
That said, I'll likely be towards the end of the line given my health and occupation.
Getting the virus under control is how we help the economy. It's not a trade-off between the two, it's both or neither.
Because even going to the grocery store has risk.
So yes: never leave your home and never have company, or get a vaccine.
Think about it like one of the many vaccines you got as a kid and never, ever worried about because they never took up any mental space for you to be concerned about it.
Not necessarily:
> Pfizer chairman: We're not sure if someone can transmit Covid after vaccination
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25298299
People that don't know that might be confident they don't need to keep distance or wear a mask anymore.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
> Challenge studies in vaccinated primates showed reductions in pathology, symptoms, and viral load in the lower respiratory tract, but failed to elicit sterilising immunity in the upper airways. Sterilising immunity in the upper airways has been claimed for one vaccine, but peer-reviewed publication of these data are awaited.
Italics are mine.
> These observations suggest that we cannot assume COVID-19 vaccines, even if shown to be effective in reducing severity of disease, will reduce virus transmission to a comparable degree. The notion that COVID-19-vaccine-induced population immunity will allow a return to pre-COVID-19 “normalcy” might be based on illusory assumptions.
I can't sense any tone of favorable expectation in the link you shared.
The reason why I'm backing h3cate and the reason why he probably spoke up is that the notion that this is a civic duty invites the idea that it's sure to protect other people, when it hasn't yet been proven to do so.
Indeed, one should get it on the chance that it does, but I'm betting a lot of people will assume the vaccine suffices for others' protection.
However, those who get the vaccine, by lowering their own chance to get sick, will contribute to the well-being of everybody: once most people are vaccinated the number of cases needing hospital has to eventually drop.
If the amount of virus produced in the body of vaccinated drops just for some percentage, the chance of transmission in some occasions will somewhat drop, even if it won't be zero. That will help everybody.
Still, there is reasonable probability that there will be a period of time when it will be hard to explain to many that they should keep behaving like potential virus carriers even after they received the vaccine (masks, distancing etc). If they do that then they will contribute to the earlier end of pandemic and directly and indirectly protect some vulnerable. By still behaving like potential carriers they will reduce already mentioned chance of transmission and contribute to health of everybody else. It's somehow non-intuitive. Also non-intuitive: some percentage of all vaccinated will with such behavior directly protect themselves too, simply because even 95% isn't 100% -- that 95% means one of 20 still gets sick, on average.
Then it won't be the first time during this pandemics that "dumbing down" the message isn't the best way to communicate.
Whoever cares about those who are most in danger, and even whoever just cares about the economy, should once again try to understand the nuances and then explain them to those who don't.
http://www.elisalong.com/uploads/1/0/9/7/109701801/long_math...
The average occupancy you quote is consistent with the “2 months ago” capacity quoted by GP.
Their only chance is never coming into contact with a contagious person, so that means as many of us need to get the vaccine as possible to ensure that doesn't happen.
I have a (now really mild) allergy to some pollen; as s child it made me miserable for two months (late April to early June) with nose constantly running, puffy eyes.
Now I barely sneeze twice a day and only in some specific areas... never got tested so I don't know which plant I am allergic to (and if it is the plant getting extinct or my body getting better at handling it).
Would this prevent me from taking the vaccine?
> What will you having this vaccine do for anybody but yourself?
We don't know if the vaccine can substitute the mask for the time being.
Edit: correction to better reflect the mRNA vaccine mechanism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-nasal-...
> Without a strong mucosal response, injected vaccines may be less likely to produce so-called sterilizing immunity, a phenomenon in which a pathogen is purged from the body before it’s able to infect cells, Dr. Durbin said. Vaccinated people might be protected from severe disease, but could still be infected, experience mild symptoms and occasionally pass small quantities of the germ onto others.
"What will you having this vaccine do for anybody but yourself ?"
COVID is contagious meaning it's as much about those around you as it is yourself.
Second, in order to beat COVID we have to have a certain immunity threshold i.e. 75% or whatever, meaning, your participation in that effort matters.
It is our 'civic duty' and I'm proud that the top commenter (at the moment I write this) has put it in those terms because that's a good way to put it.
* because there are many people out of work whose livelihoods depend on the types of establishments closed or restricted by COVID (restaurants, theaters, etc)
* because safely interacting with other human beings in-person is generally good for mental health
I honestly think I would have said otherwise a year ago. But after seeing the mishandling of COVID-19, I no longer have faith in my countries ability to use emergency powers scientifically.
I fully support people’s right to opt out of social goods like the vaccine, but I’m afraid you should be refused access to many social services your presence would threaten: schools, transit, libraries, etc.
We accept that we have to get a license to legally drive a car on public streets, why not accept a vaccine to access public spaces during a pandemic?
Societies already compel a number of behaviors for unrestricted participation, I don’t see vaccines during a pandemic as being particularly onerous.
> no longer have faith in my country
I don’t know what country you live in, but many countries have the same assessment of many vaccines. Even if you distrust one country there are likely many more positive assessments you can turn to.
No I'm not. I'm not at all worried about contracting covid. At my age and health, the science is very clear that COVID-19 poses almost no risk to me. The only reason I'd bother with a vaccine is to protect others.
But protecting others doesn't just mean protecting others now. It also means protecting others in the future. Bad government is a _serious_ risk.
> I don’t know what country you live in, but many countries have the same assessment of many vaccines.
I wasn't talking about science in relation to vaccines. I was talking about science in relation to the entire policy. I do not believe my government (Canada) is making decisions based on science in its use of emergency powers in general. That's pretty clear by the fact that they're unable to justify so many of the decisions made with actual numbers and models.
Emergency powers are dangerous tools. We hope they get reserved for situations where the benefit is worth the risk. But after seeing how badly, and unscientifically. government has handled the entire pandemic, I want to see those emergency powers further restricted, so they aren't so easy to use in the future.
edit: Note how Trump has told the FDA chief that his options were to approve the Pfizer vaccine or resign: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/12/11/trump-steph...
What a terrible precedent for science.
As a Canadian currently living in the US, it seems to me like Canada has handled things better out of the two countries... less than half the deaths per capita, and they managed to avoid the hospital overloading that happened in some states. Putting a lid on international travel early on seemed to make a big difference for Canada, as well as having a nationwide quarantine requirement.
I understand the sentiment though. When I visited Canada this year, the border agent read me sections of the Quarantine Act and I was pretty astonished at the extent of federal powers and penalties that had been created on such short notice. The maximum penalty for violating quarantine is a million dollar fine and three years in prison.
There's so much luck involved in those figures at any given point, not to mention the influence of different definitions and testing strategies, that I wouldn't make the claim that Canada is doing better or worse based on stats like that. Just look at the huge differences between different states (and in Canada's case, provinces).
After all, two months ago you might have said that Sweden did much worse than the EU. Yet at this moment, the EU average reported deaths-per-capita is just slightly below Sweden's, with many countries significantly above.
The only good thing is that my family and friends in Canada have stopped making smug comments about the superiority of the country...
I don't think our politicians generally have the balls to do something that controversial though.
My hunch is that enough people will be willing to take the [apparently small] risk and we won't have to pressure anyone. Also, for at least the next few months we won't even be able to meet the demand for vaccines, so it'll be a while before that's a concern.
Why mandate what people would do voluntarily anyway.
I have invested in big-tech and bio-pharma companies, so I should be happy, but I am not. I cannot be happy when so many people are closing their small businesses and so many others die because of how the whole situation was handled.
I do not have a problem with the masks or the fact that we eventually will all have to take a vaccine.
However, the problem starts before that and doesn't end with the first vaccine we are going to get:
- Phase 1: Governments fail to protect the people during February-March by not banning travel from the infected areas.
- Phase 2: People should wear masks, socially distance, close their shops, self-isolate, etc. At the same time medical stuff should overwork and over-risk their lives.
- Phase 3: People should take the vaccine. At a low price initially, but big pharma will increase it at some point, (when they are done with the mass beta testing).
- Phase 4: People should keep taking the vaccine (at least that's the main story for the moment). They might end up having to prove that with a "vaccine passport".
I don't have problem with Phase 2. I follow the guidelines, since February, before they were guidelines of any Western government. Apparently, Eastern countries have faced similar outbreaks and there was plenty of information on what people there do.
I don't have a problem with Phase 3, either. I want to do as much to protect myself and others.
However, the current narrative is that people who do follow Phase 3 and then 4 (assuming they can take the vaccine but chose not to) are the "bad" people who do not care about the others. And they should be marginalized and even ostracized from the society.
>>> Where is the accountability for the governments?
They, before everyone else, put peoples' health at risk.
But I forgot. They "saved" the economy (only of some big tech companies and, eventually, the big pharma).
You can't compare that to the current situation with COVID-19. Remember that we've accelerated testing so much that we literally don't even know yet if these vaccines actually provide a mortality benefit: there just isn't enough data yet. You can't even compare this situation to other uses of vaccines. Not that I'm even aware of us ever successfully stopping a serious pandemic with a vaccine (with H1N1 the vaccines came too late to do much good, and the pandemic was much less serious than we thought).
Some countries simply can't deploy them yet, as their laws don't allow for emergency approvals: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emergency-vaccine-approval-not-...
And also years of screaming about rights being abused while people died unnecessarily in car crashes. Today, the people who resisted seatbelts are rightfully regarded as fools.
Are you an epidemiologist? How effective is your ability to personally judge the scientific debate here?
So wear your seat belt, get your vaccine when offered, and when we’re finally able to safely go into restaurants, please do not annoy the hostess with long rants about how it’s your civic duty to not wear pants because the government mandates it. She’s not going to care about the political theory — she’s just going to need you to leave.
Thankfully, if we have enough rational adults who do their civic duty, then we'll be ok to let the tin-foil hats not take it.
Feels a bit like not letting the taxpayer-funded fire department turn their hoses on your burning house because you're worried about "socialism".
COVID is your house burning down while your family and friends are still inside it. Maybe get on with solving that problem first and then worry about the (currently totally speculative) spectre of mandatory vaccines later.