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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

You must be joking? As bad as (some) Republicans are let's not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying they wouldn't take the "Trump Vaccine." Not only did that put distrust into the hearts of people on the left, it also gave ammunition for the people on the right. It should have never been a political issue. Unfortunately this is a bipartisan problem (though right now it's more prevalent on the right, I suspect if Trump had won the number on the left would balloon,) a lot of people on the West Coast you'd otherwise call "liberal" are anti-vaxxers and have been for decades. It's a weird coalition of people on the left and right.

Now outside of the US, anti-vaxxers are in every country including Germany, Australia, the UK. It's a global problem. It's actually the "third world" that seems to have less vaccine hesitance. Probably because they've seen the recent benefits of vaccines and they have less access to misinformation.

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No, definitely not joking. As https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness... notes, there is essentially zero correlation between any European government's policy at one time or another. They all adjusted to what was happening with COVID, no matter what other political alignments those in power had. (Yes, even Sweden.)

By contrast in the USA, and ONLY in the USA, COVID became a partisan issue so state policies didn't change much.

As far as I can tell Biden and Harris said they distrusted the Trump rollout of the vaccine but not the vaccine itself. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...

What is that supposed to mean, except don't trust the product being rolled out?

The factcheck word twisting is getting out of control.

But if anything, this distinction is worse, because instead of saying don't trust a controversial product, it's saying don't trust this controversial product because you shouldn't trust the/this government promoting it.

And that's largely what made this, or magnified it, as a political issue: the broader acceptance of saying it's ok to distrust the government depending on what politician is speaking.

Not trusting that it's being distributed in the best way is in no way the same as distrusting the vaccine itself.

That's absolutely not what anyone was implying. And at best is a distinction without a difference.

They were responding to being asked if they would take a vaccine developed/released under the Trump administration.

Not: "What's wrong with how this administrator is handling the vaccine?"

Or, "Do you have a problem with how it's going to distributed?" Which didn't significantly change from one administration to the next, and is an impressive logistical feat in it's own right.

Even if, the same logic stands. Sowing distrust in distribution -or any other aspect- is either implicit distrust in the product or distrust in the government pushing it.

What good is expressing distrust in any part of it, except to discourage people from trusting the quality/safety/efficacy of the product itself?

Here’s a simple metaphor to clarify: they didn’t trust the reliability of ice cream trucks but were excited for cool treats inside.

No, the presumptive question was "If Trump delivered, would you take it?"

Not "Do you trust that Trump will deliver in time?"

Or anything about reliability being affected by "rushing" things, because when it did arrive in the timeframe Trump promised, no one was concerned about the speediness compromising any quality or reliability.

The election was over by that point.

Politifact is so off on this one.

> let's not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying they wouldn't take the "Trump Vaccine."

Could you point me in the direction of a source on this? I have done my own research and pulled up absolutely nothing. Actually that's inaccurate. I pulled up a BUNCH of 2020 articles where Biden talks about inadequate vaccination orders, etc. But I'd be interested in seeing the basis of your claims.

you need to look no further than kamala's vp debate video.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...

Harris:

"If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it. Absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it."

Kamala says she would not take a vaccine recommended by Trump, even if recommended by scientists. There is no way in the US for a vaccine to be publicly available without FDA approval so the only interpretation that makes sense is one where even if the FDA approved it, if Trump also approved it she would not take it.

Biden:

"Look at what’s happened. Enormous pressure put on the CDC not to put out the detailed guidelines. The enormous pressure being put on the FDA to say they’re going, that the following protocol will in fact reduce, it will have a giant impact on COVID. All these things turn out not to be true, and when a president continues to mislead and lie, when we finally do, God willing, get a vaccine, who’s going to take the shot? Who’s going to take the shot? You going to be the first one to say, ‘Put me — sign me up, they now say it’s OK’? I’m not being facetious."

Biden says he does not trust the CDC and FDA (at the time) because of political influence.

Hold on. That's much more nuanced than what was originally being implied. (not from the US btw...)

> Kamala says she would not take a vaccine recommended by Trump, even if recommended by scientists.

This is not what she said. She specifically said that if public health professionals and Dr. Fauci recommended it, she would take it. The "if Donald Trump tells us" has an implied 'solely' and that is not hard to figure out given context, where in the same statement she says she'd take it if the public health professionals recommended it.

> Biden says he does not trust the CDC and FDA (at the time) because of political influence.

Not what he said. He was asking for more transparency, and suggesting that that needs to happen for public opinion to sway in the direction of getting the vaccines; in particular, during the Trump administration when the public was repeatedly fed lies about all sorts of things.

Both are more nuanced than you are suggesting, imho.

Again, how would Americans get their hands on a vaccine that Trump "solely" recommends? It isn't possible.

Why does that matter?

Is this sarcasm?

Because it shows that Kamala only said what she said to politicize the vaccine.

How did Nixon get Archibald Cox fired? He fired everyone in the line of succession for the Attorney General until he found someone who would do what he asked. It is not inconceivable that the same thing could have happened with the FDA.

With the history that Trump had for firing people who did follow unreasonable orders (e.g. Rod Rosenstein), it becomes entirely plausible that he would fire any FDA head who did not support a vaccine, regardless of the science behind them. As things turned out, the studies did support the vaccine, but it was not unreasonable to draw a distinction between unbiased experts and experts under threat of firing.

[editing out because someone beat me to it!]

That's a distortion of what Harris et al said.

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