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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

It's disheartening seeing people in the US mad at the 30% vaccine hesitant there, while 6B+ at the gates have no vaccines available at all.

The US isn't an island, and the borders are nowhere near closed. The variants that grow in the other 96% of humans that aren't americans will doubtlessly end up there, and will be end up tending toward vaccine resistance due to selection pressure.

I think this is going to get much worse before it gets better. The disunity of nationalistic selfishness has struck our species once again.

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You're getting downvoted but I do believe you're correct. I'm a healthy 21 year old, please govt., give my vaccine to other countries. I will take it if offered, but I'd prefer to give it to those who really need it all things considered. Let me get the vaccine when others are safe.

Your altruism is laudable but don't think this can't hurt you. I know a healthy, athletic 25 year old who has needed an inhaler every day for the last year because of her moderate, non-hospitalized Covid case. Her lung damage will probably not heal any further at this point.

I would get vaccinated ASAP. You're as deserving as anyone else. You don't want to risk spending the rest of your life with impaired breathing.

I know a guy that caught it bad, he was less than 50 years old. Almost died, like really, he would have died but they brought him back. He is doing better, but is far from completely recovered.

I know other people who treat this like some kind of joke. You just don't know how bad you might react to it.

I am most worried about the long term effects. If you die, that's one thing, but having lingering after-effects would really suck.

It’s not going to happen. That’s not the way that distribution works at scale. Just like the “kids are starving in $country/continent” lines that were often said when I was a kid, it’s horrible and I wish it wasn’t true but whether I clean my plate or not has little to do to help their situation. Whether you personally take a vaccine dose or a tax credit or whatever that you quality for, it has been allocated and will not be given to anyone else.

Your being vaccinated is important for protecting those who can’t be vaccinated. Plus, what’s most likely to drive governments to exports of vaccines is hitting/exceeding their own vaccination targets. The most effective way to lobby for exports is to get vaccinated.

Well said. Getting vaccinated when you're technically low risk may seem selfish, but it still benefits others. It would be politically untenable for the US to give away its remaining doses until a substantial portion of its own population is vaccinated. Whether that's right or wrong, the faster we get there, the better.

Exactly. I have a friend whose kids all share a condition where vaccines don't work well on them. For them to be safe, we need herd immunity. Successful elimination of the disease here makes it easier to turn toward helping others.

You seem to have misunderstood my point. If you are offered a vaccine, take it immediately.

The point was that 100% of the USA could be vaccinated today, and the USA will not be done with covid.

Far more people in poorer countries will die from the economic consequences of lockdowns and travel restrictions than the disease. Decisions that were neither inevitable nor necessary will lower the opportunities for people to double their incomes from $1-$5/day for at least the next decade.

I am confident that HN crowd has heard about graph theory. We try to deactivate a network, we care firstly for the nodes of high connectivity to kill the virus transmission network.

Vaccinating a grandpa helps the grandpa. Vaccinating a super social young person helps everybody else.

I'm not allowed to be super social by law. I've seen about five people in a year. If I'm going to be forced into depression then it might as well be for a good reason.

> The disunity of nationalistic selfishness has struck our species once again.

Let's unpack that.

Is what you describe a species specific phenomenon i.e. biological in origin? I'm not sure how you'd determine that question, if what you are talking about is "attitude to vaccine inoculation to stave off pandemic spread", since that behaviour is limited to one species, and is fairly recent.

Is what you describe a species wide phenomenon i.e. biological in origin? What does the data from different nationalities tell us? Does the phenomenon occur similarly in all nationalities, or only some?

Is the phenomenon biological in nature, or might it be cultural? Is it even widely held amongst individuals, or might it originate from some other level of organisation e.g. government, media? How would you investigate these questions?

This might be a blindspot among the US citizens. I know the European countries have united to supply vaccines to the developing world with their Covax program. But I don't think the US is doing anything similar. I'm not even sure how the US would go about doing that. Would it have to be a Presidentially-ordered/led initiative?

As a private citizen, I'd be 100% for the US helping to vaccinate the world. It's an obvious benefit to the US to not have variants arising outside its shores and coming into the country.

> It's an obvious benefit to the US to not have variants arising outside its shores and coming into the country.

I hope you meant this as a way to sell it, because this view is a terrible, terrible way to approach the world, as it lives outside of the US are only to be preserved insofar as doing so protects USians.

Saving human lives is sufficient reason itself.

>Saving human lives is sufficient reason itself.

I think our experience over the last year and a half has proven that, for many, it is not sufficient reason. Self-interest is a far stronger motivator.

If your expectations of people are too high you will always be disappointed. If other people's goals are aligned with yours for the wrong reason, that's better than them not being aligned with your goals at all. See the book "The Wisdom of Psychopaths." Your surgeon might be motivated by profit or might be motivated by altruism, in the end what matters for your survival is that he's the best at his job.

>It's an obvious benefit to the US to not have variants arising outside its shores and coming into the country.

Not just that but it's economically beneficial as well. There are a lot of US jobs that are dependent on exports and tourism from those countries.

Also a massive boon to the worldwide conspiracy theory market I'd bet. The US wants to inject all of you with something, please line up.

Also, most variants develop in other mammals. Even at 100% human vaccination, we’re likely to see new variants.

(Everyone that can should get vaccinated anyway.)

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