Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

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> Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker!

Though it's worth noting that MDs (and all other kinds of doctors) can be incompetent and/or batshit insane.

For instance, I had the pleasure of viewing a video where a psychiatrist leaned on his MD credential to "debunk" COVID and the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. Even ignoring his personal competency, I wouldn't be surprised if his specialty has the least qualification to speak on the topic of infectious disease of all medical specialties. Here's the video for anyone interested: https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/09/watch-ask-the-experts-co..., the guy I'm talking about is the first speaker (didn't bother with any of the others).

Edit: watching a bit more of that video, many of the other speakers emphasize being "medical doctors" and several use the odd phrase "medical pandemic." I wonder if they're reading from a script?

The whole COVID "skeptic" circus is full of quacks with irrelevant credentials, like urologists and orthodontists. As a prominent example, I give you Rand Paul. If you take advice on infectious diseases from an ophthalmologist, you're going to have a bad time.

My ophthalmologist requires masks and social distancing in his office. He also recommended against wearing contacts for the duration of the pandemic (he says glasses offer more protection.)

Why am I going to have a bad time for following his rules and advice?

>> If you take advice on infectious diseases from an ophthalmologist, you're going to have a bad time.

> Why am I going to have a bad time for following his rules and advice?

You're not, you're just being over-literal. Most ophthalmologists are sensible people who will give guidance outside their fields that comports with the guidance from medical professionals in that field. That sounds like your ophthalmologist. However, if you find an ophthalmologist who blatantly contradicts the guidance from areas far outside his field, then that's when "you're going to have a bad time." The reason for that is you've likely found someone who doesn't respect the limits of his own knowledge and experience.

If your podiatrist says the earth is round, and you agree, you are not taking advice in cosmology from a podiatrist. But if your podiatrist tells you the earth is flat, and you believe that, then you are. See the difference?

No, I don't see the difference. That just sounds like an example of confirmation bias.

On the other hand, anyone who's taken a college anatomy class is more "expert" than a large majority of others, including some loud voices. Unfortunately, expert doesn't always mean well informed. That's why we look for the collective expert opinion rather than an expert's opinion.

I don't know about psychiatry in America, but psychiatry is a specialty within general medicine, so he is qualified to speak on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.

The authority based medicine surrounding Covid is completely out of hand

> "debunk" COVID and the efficacy and safety of the vaccine

What evidence is there of the efficacy of the vaccine that isn’t provided directly from Pfizer/Moderna?

What evidence is there that it is safe, when there are 0 mid-to-long term studies on the effects of it? If it safe why are the pharma company’s immune from all liability?

Why is anyone that question the narrative on how safe and effective the vaccines immediately labeled a “quack”, “alt right”, or “anti-vax” (there are plenty of pro-vax people that are skeptical of THIS vax, not all vax).

> What evidence is there of the efficacy of the vaccine that isn’t provided directly from Pfizer/Moderna?

There are multiple observational studies looking at real-world effectiveness. If necessary I'll find some links, but have you looked?

I haven’t look for studies specifically, if you could link some that would be great.

I just hear anecdotal evidence like “hospitalizations have gone down”. Which may be 100% true, but is hardly evidence that the vaccines are effective. The placebo effect is well known. It’s not shocking that hospitalization has gone down when the media has been beating the fear drum on how terribly dangerous the virus is 24/7, causing people to panic (pre vaccine days) and go to the hospital out of caution. Along comes a vaccine that is touted as effective and the media pounds that drum 24/7 and hospitalization goes down. The vaccine could have been saline solution and you would have seen a drop in hospitalization.

I've mostly been interested in effectiveness against the Delta strain, so the links in my history are recent preprints that have something to say about that: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.21261707v... , https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891 , and a UK Government analysis that you'll probably find less convincing so I won't bother linking it.

http://www.healthdata.org/covid/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-su...

There's a PDF in this article that links to dozens of independent studies. Or, just google "covid vaccine efficacy" and it pulls up a bunch of links for you.

It really only takes a minimum of effort to answer these hard-hitting questions you've posed. As another example, I googled "why are pharmaceutical companies immune from liability over covid vaccine" and found https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=848329 .

It seems silly to worry about completely hypothetical and unknown long-term risks of vaccination when getting COVID-19 has very serious, well known short-term risks.

Doesn't seem silly at all to me : the known risks of covid are pretty tolerable. Death rate is extremely low for my demographic.

So lets say I have a 30% chance of getting covid without a vax and a .1% chance of serious long term illness or death from covid.

Now If I get the vaccine, I have a 1% chance of getting covid, and.01% chance of serioues injury or death + an unkown chance of unkown serious health complications from a vaccine.

Id take bet 1 any day, personally, since the odds and stakes of the vaccine are unkown.

Admittedly though, I think the chance of serious injury from vaccine is probably quite low or nonexistant but Im just trying to make the point that that perspective involves some reasonable value judgements.

Note : all oercentages listed are majorly hand wavy. This comment is in no way intended to be statistically accurate

Cheers.

>> It seems silly to worry about completely hypothetical and unknown long-term risks of vaccination when getting COVID-19 has very serious, well known short-term risks.

> Doesn't seem silly at all to me : the known risks of covid are pretty tolerable. Death rate is extremely low for my demographic [emphasis mine].

That perspective is why we can't have nice things.

Not really dude. If I was around other people even remotely often it would be a different story but I work from home, dont really hang out with people, and wear an n95 when I have to go to the store.

It doesn't make me a bad person to be unvaccinated. It would if I was cavalier about potentially getting others sick...

> Not really dude. If I was around other people even remotely often it would be a different story but I work from home, dont really hang out with people, and wear an n95 when I have to go to the store.

> It doesn't make me a bad person to be unvaccinated. It would if I was cavalier about potentially getting others sick...

Then you truly are a rare bird.

You imply that the long term risks of covid-19 are known, so conflating the unknown/imaginary risks of both, that leaves getting the vaccine a better deal, because 'you have less change of getting sick'.

Yeah you make a good point. No idea what long term risks of covid are.

I guess I just feel more comfortable rolling the dice with a natural (maybe? Lmao) disease than a product made by the same companies that were public enemy #1 just months before they became our "saviours"

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