Hacker News Reader

Comment by CarelessExpert | Hacker News Reader

I wish I could get skeptics to believe this kind of evidence. I've had deeply frustrating conversations that went along the lines o

Them: The vaccines are more dangerous than the virus!

Me: No they aren't. There's very few cases of severe side effects. Blood clots with AZ are about the worst we've seen, though GBS is always a small risk with vaccinations.

Them: No, the vaccines are super dangerous. People have gotten really sick from them.

Me: No they haven't. Where did you hear this?

Them: Yes they have.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Unfortunately, there's a solid contingent of people who get their "news" from Facebook conspiracy groups and use social media to reinforce bad information in their bubbles. Getting to them is proving damn near impossible...

View on HN

> Them: The vaccines are more dangerous than the virus!

Children under age 14 are between 6.8 and 17 times less likely to die of Covid-19 than the seasonal flu or pneumonia. And here we are, trying to preemptively vaccinate them against a disease that they are not particularly susceptible to. I'm not sure if the vaccine is more dangerous but if it were, I doubt it would be making headlines.

The argument could be made that vaccinating children helps to protect vulnerable adults, and that them shouldering the risks from vaccination are for the public good, but that's not what the media and government are selling. They are intentionally distorting the facts to make the virus seem more dangerous than it actually is, overstating "long covid" and other pseudoscience, understating the risks, such as blood clots and cardiac conditions, and not being forthright about the risks of vaccinating young people.

My question is: Why not be honest with people? It sounds a lot like the guidance from Early-2020 when the CDC was telling us that masks were not effective in preventing COVID-19 transmission, which they backpedaled by saying they did spread misinformation, but it was "for the protection the supply of PPE for healthcare workers". Why should I trust a government agency that believes lying is OK if it's in the best interest of the government? Why would they be telling the truth now if they have a track record of misrepresenting the facts?

Not dying from Covid does not imply not being susceptible to the disease - it has a sufficiently large proportion of bad long term effects so that we would want to prevent everyone, including children, from getting sick with Covid even they aren't likely to die from it.

Death rate is not the only measure, and it's not the proper measure in this case.

E.g. a recent Norwegian study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01433-3) had roughly half of young (16-30) people with mild covid (non-hospitalized) still showing harmful effects six months afterwards; so the covid risks/consequences are much worse than any currently known vaccine side-effects even for mild covid in young people. Heck, we're even seeing long-term problems for some people for whom the initial infection was asymptomatic - this is a nasty, risky disease to get, not comparable to diseases that just put you out of work for some time and you're fine if it doesn't kill you.

> there's a solid contingent of people who get their "news" from Facebook conspiracy groups and use social media to reinforce bad information in their bubbles. Getting to them is proving damn near impossible...

I think it's a bit unfair that the ones that are cautious towards the vaccines are default labeled as "news" from Facebook conspiracy groups. I've joined a couple side effect groups myself to read what other people have been experiencing (and these people CHOSE to get vaccinated, one or both doses!) so they're looking to join support groups. I join support groups for other reasons all the time and I don't consider my own experiences "conspiracy".

For sure there are the fringe groups but just because it's not documented in a clinical trial ran by a giant corporation doesn't mean they aren't true. This goes the same for the metoo movement, it's as if saying what these women are scared of or what they're experiencing aren't real because there isn't "evidence" that it happened (and of course you have the real ones that make up fake stories too).

I personally know 3 people that have and are still experiencing side effects from their shots in Jan through March. 1 went deaf in one year (she's still running through a lot of tests with the doctors to find out why), one continues to have swollen ankles, lymph nodes, brain fog (again, running a lot of tests as well to find alternative cause, nothing so far), and one (local doctor at the emergency hospital)'s alopecia came back.

The first two are now seriously questioning now (months later) why the doctors aren't looking at the possibility that the vaccine may have triggered it. They've instantly ruled it out right away.

> I think it's a bit unfair that the ones that are cautious towards the vaccines are default labeled as "news" from Facebook conspiracy groups.

You seem to have missed the part where they made specific claims about dangerous side effects or major adverse events, but when pushed for sources or evidence, demurred.

It's clear they formed an opinion based on very bad information. Where did that information come from? I think the answer is obvious.

As for the rest, honestly, you have three pieces of anecdata, none of which align with any other reported adverse events from the vaccines. I'd be a little surprised if the doctors did explore that theory before ruling out more traditional avenues of investigation first.

It's a problem with interpreting risk and control. Allow me to explain:

1. People think (wrongly) that they can control catching the virus. They can wear a mask, keep their distance, etc. This gives them a false sense of security and control. They think that if they do catch covid, they're unlikely to get really sick from it.

2. People (righly) think that they have very little control over what their bodies do after they get a vaccine.

3. People (wrongly) think that very serious side effects are more common than they are.

Those all combine to an incorrect belief that they are better off without getting vaccinated. It's not an absurd sequence of beliefs. It's wrong. But it's easy to see how a lot of people become skeptics.

Point 1 and 3 can both be remedied by increasing awareness. At least in my neck of the woods, official communication has been pretty poor. What's especially lacking is communication aimed at people who are not very science-literate.

When I got my first shot, there was almost zero information about potential side effects. Two weeks later, I developed a huge rash near the injection site. Being somewhat intelligent, I was able to look this up and figure out that it was no big deal. If someone who is already skeptical were to experience this, I imagine they would be very disinclined to get their second shot.

Yup, all great points, though I'm a lot more skeptical that #1 and #3 can be addressed with better awareness.

The problem is that for every PSA from the government, message from a doctor, or conversation with a trusted friend or loved one, there's a hundred posts on <insert social media platform here> that are designed to appeal to folks looking for a reason not to take the vaccine. It's basically a fight against an at-scale, technology-assisted gish gallop.

Add in things like the primacy effect and it's incredibly difficult to deprogram people once they've internalized bad information.

I think in some cases either people are stupid or are just unreasonably scared.

I discussed this with a family member when AZ side effects started appearing on the news. I tried showing him the numbers (millions of inoculations, few “vaccine-related” deaths) but even presented with “The chances of getting sick with a vaccine are 0.00005%” (I don’t remember the exact number) he would not budge.

I told him “The chances of getting the virus + the chances of dying are hundreds of times higher.”

Nothing.

He just says “my friend got covid and he’s fine” and “that person on the news died from the vaccine.”

Stats and logic don’t work on some people.

Haha, multiple European countries have halted administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people under 60 because they can't be sure that the benefits outweigh the risks, and you still have people fretting that "these darn skeptics just won't listen to Stats And Logic!"

This whole line of argument that "the population-wide risks of the virus are outweighed by the (publicly acknowledged) population-wide risks of the vaccine" is extremely innumerate when addressed to a non-elderly, healthy person without co-morbidities. Your family member's instinct that his risks may be higher from the vaccine might be entirely in line with the reality.

> Your family member's instinct that his risks may be higher from the vaccine might be entirely in line with the reality.

Based on the VAERS data, this is probably the case for anyone under the age of 60.

It is definitely the case for anyone under the age of 30.

But everyone gets similarly bludgeoned with population-level data to convince them to make an individual-level decision. If you want to call them selfish, go for it. But they're not stupid.

They halted it because they have a choice now, not because the vaccine is worse than COVID. Did you read the article? Probably not because you’re spouting the same nonsense as antivaxers. Look at the stats and remember this is a pandemic: Your choice affects others. The reality is that you’re just selfish.

Edit: Rereading some articles about the stop reminded me that the stop was a political decision more than anything. In short they’d rather slow down vaccination a bit to avoid scaring the population with numbers they don’t understand and off of the vaccines altogether.

It was akin to “shooing the ghost away” so the kid stops being scared.

The problem with statistics is that it's very easy to lie using the statistics. Those who control the information are able to craft whatever statistics they want & nobody can audit the numbers or the counting because the information is simply not made available to the public. The only way to get the actual numbers to the public is for a whistle-blower to come forward, to the risk of that whistle-blower's career or life.

We are back to trusting the mechanic who says we need to replace the entire engine. Want to get a second opinion? Well, you can only get a second opinion from another mechanic that the mechanic approves of. All other mechanics are censored & have their licenses stripped from them.

The medical industry has been caught lying to the public, saying for years there are no adverse affects due to vaccination. Now that there too much public evidence, the medical industry wants to continue to control the conversation with their statistics that are probably fabricated or P-hacked.

There is no legal liability for vaccine manufacturers or pushers. If Dr. Mengele were alive today, he could do what he did to the Jews without any legal consequences by calling his "treatment" a vaccine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com