CDC: Covid-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections in Massachusetts

At the risk of downvotes, not that I care, there are people out there who are exercising their own due caution for their own health reasons, based on individualized specifics. When has there EVER been a one size fits all solution to health, very rarely.

That being said, I dont have social media and I dont see what you see. From where I sit, I see very little of vocal antivaxxers and significantly of the exact opposite - extremely vocal shaming of anyone who has not taken the vax by people who have.

Many of the people I have spoken to, who have not, have experienced in their lives long-term health effects of ill advised medication - much of it from these very same companies. To demand that they take a new medication that has no longitudinal studies associated with it, along with warnings out there, either from the FDAs own website, or from former workers of these vaccine companies, seems cruel.

To be fair, folks on both sides are vocal, and rightly so given the magnitude and consequences of this pandemic. Also, we must remember that the spirit of science is to question assumptions and rigorously prove hypothesis.

In case you're unaware, there are legitimate second and third order effects to consider regarding vaccines and the evolutionary dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. Don't take my word for it - here is peer-reviewed research from the brightest minds and top institutions in the world, raising serious concerns about our approach [1].

Excerpts from [1]:

- "The spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 is the molecular target for many vaccines and antibody-based prophylactics aimed at bringing COVID-19 under control."

- "Such a narrow molecular focus raises the specter of viral immune evasion as a potential failure mode for these biomedical interventions. With the emergence of new strains of SARS-CoV-2 with altered transmissibility and immune evasion potential, a critical question is this: how easily can the virus escape neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) targeting the spike RBD?"

- "Our modeling suggests that SARS-CoV-2 mutants with one or two mildly deleterious mutations are expected to exist in high numbers due to neutral genetic variation, and consequently resistance to vaccines or other prophylactics that rely on one or two antibodies for protection can develop quickly -and repeatedly- under positive selection."

- "The speed at which nAb resistance develops in the population increases substantially as the number of infected individuals increases, suggesting that complementary strategies to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission that exert specific pressure on other proteins (e.g., antiviral prophylactics) or that do not exert a specific selective pressure on the virus (e.g., high-efficiency air filtration, masking, ultraviolet air purification) are key to reducing the risk of immune escape"

- "Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities"

[1] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (April 2021) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/

Look up what's happened with Marek's disease. The vaccines are making the disease worse and we have known this would be the outcome for years. These vaccines would not have been approved for livestock use. Obviously herd culling is not an option with people so the vaccines were needed but they certainly should have been limited to the most vulnerable populations until better ones were produced. The efficacy of the vaccines did not meet the thresholds for herd immunity. Since the vaccines do not actually mimic natural immunity the now unfortunate and inevitable outcome is going to be a worse disease.

I think calling people "anti vaxxers" when many of them are quite pro vaccines, but just anti or hesitant towards this vaccine is part of it. When you insult people and basically call them an idiot for a position that was the mainstream opinion less than a year ago is pretty ridiculous. You probably can't name many politicians or media personalities in the US that were pro vaccine a year ago. When you heard how this vaccine was going to be unsafe due to the speed it was created because Trump was encouraging them to go faster for a better part of a year you can't expect people to just think it is safe.

All of these insults causes people to get defensive and defend their position loudly. If you want people to take the vaccine don't insult them. Don't accuse them of wanting to kill grandma. Don't talk down to them.

For whatever reason covid has caused people to lose their ability to convince people of things. When has insulting people ever caused a change in thinking?

Conspiracy types are pretty much always overrepresented on web forums, newspaper comments, etc. This is likely because they often have an evangelising tendency; they need to show the unbelievers The Truth.

Hackernews is primarily a US audience, and the US has a high rate of vaccine hesitancy (about 25%). Even in countries with a low rate of vaccine hesitancy, though, they fill the comments sections. Ireland has 5-10% vaccine hesitancy depending on poll, say, but if you were to try to evaluate it purely based on news website comment sections, you'd assume that it was well over 50%.

It’s relatively simple, settled science that masks are effective against airborne pathogens, but I agree that all the rhetoric ignores the fact that masks are only as good as people are at wearing them. Visit any airport in America and you’ll see at least a third of the people technically wearing a mask, but not effectively wearing a mask. Vaccines are our way out of this, full stop.

With this comment we realize that the American experiment has essentially failed - and that in fact, left to their own devices, with only 'freedom' to guide them, people will inevitably devolve into mindless cretins.

> what's the point, if natural infections are the only way to get protective immunity?

Natural infection from back with the original virus? I've not seen any evidence and can't think of a logical reason why it would be more effective than a vaccine based on the original virus.

I think the real problem is going to be people who were never exposed to the virus getting a variant that is transmitting effectively through people with immunity to the original virus from any source. A way for a variant to get to that is to reach levels that kill anyone not previously exposed. Fear for people who have an immunity I find misplaced, for those who are immunized or survive an ever more dangerous first infection this is going to be our new flu, and it will send people to hospital and very rarely kill.

Governments lie and lies (masks don't work, just two weeks, how dare you not wear a mask, social distancing is important unless you're a politician, you'll get your freedom back once your vaccinated, etc), but then anyone who questions them is "anti-science".