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Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

The ethics of deciding whether to get vaccinated is different than the ethics of whether to wear a helmet or seatbelt too: if you go without a helmet, you will only hurt yourself, and we can still harvest your organs. So go right ahead. But if you refuse to get vaccinated, you could be responsible for the sickness and possible death of hundreds of strangers. So that is really quite immoral.

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How does not being vaccinated put anyone else’s life in danger? As far as I am aware, the vaccine does not prevent you from getting or spreading it, only reduces the symptoms drastically.

It absolutely does prevent you from getting it and spreading it. That’s the whole point of herd immunity. It’s the point of vaccines in general. How do you think we got rid of smallpox? People got vaccinated, and it died out. Now there is no such thing as smallpox, so nobody even has to get a smallpox vaccine anymore. We won.. There hasn’t been a case of smallpox since 1978. A disease that killed hundreds of millions, and it’s gone forever. We could do the same to covid.

Usually but not always and it depends on the variant. If you still get it then you are less likely to spread it - https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri...

How has that worked out for Influenza? Wiped out yet? We've only been vaccinating for it for 75 YEARS!

We're not likely to wipe out SARS-Co-V2 or similar viruses. Like the flu, "Covid" or some other mutation of the Wuhan virus will most likely be with us for thousands of years.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri....

Epidemiology is all about the statistics of infection and transmission.

Being vaccinated greatly reduces the probability you will get infected, and if you do become infected, it greatly reduces the viral load and thus your ability to infect others.

Nothing is perfect, but being vaccinated strongly reduces your chances of a) getting infected in the first place; and then b) thus passing it on to someone else.

It absolutely doesn’t reduce your chances of getting infected.

> Research from the CDC has found that the mRNA vaccines ... reduce the risk of infection by 91 percent in people who are fully vaccinated.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/getting-a-pfizer-or-m...

> A new CDC study provides strong evidence that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections in real-world conditions

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vacci...

In my country, the age group that took up the most hospital beds was the 45 - 64 year olds. [1] This is probably true for your country too.

The vaccine will prevent you from being hospitalised and burdening the healthcare system. This will allow cancer diagnosis/treatments, surgery and other life saving procedures to go ahead for other people.

[1] https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker...

Scroll to “ New Hospital Admissions by Age Group” and change to “In Total”.

Ok, so as long as I am not hospitalized with covid I am not putting anyone else’s life in danger. I’m lucky I am in one of the least effected demographics then. Of course no one knows whether or not they’ll have a good response but that’s a risk I’m willing to take based on the data I’ve seen.

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