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Comment by creaturemachine | Hacker News Reader

The science is evolving, and these differences from a year ago are proof of that. I don't think the vaccine makers were very proud to admit that their wonderdrug wasn't what it was promised to be, but that's the way it is. The only remaining choice for anti-vaxxers in the face of increasingly contagious variants is take the shot or risk death. Your call.

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> The science is evolving

Science got massively oversold. Who did that? Who benefits from that?

> The only remaining choice for anti-vaxxers in the face of increasingly contagious variants is take the shot or risk death. Your call.

I think if you call anyone hesitant to take these shots an anti-vaxxer, you contribute to making the narative so everything extreme. Many that are "c19 vaccine hesitant" are vaccinating their children on the locally standard schedule. It is just that this c19 vaccine is a bit different: did not yet stand the test of time and it is in many cases a whole new therapy (mRNA therapy's debut).

> take the shot or risk death

This sounds so dramatic. This choice is everywhere, just not with so much media attention. Diets, traffic accidents, extreme sports, ...

I think we should use vaccines only to protect those at risk, and/or those who want protection by it. Once they have the shot it's over.

The media is pushing a story that we need to all get vaccinated to protect others. I think, given the research, that this is never going to happen (virus will stay in corners of the world with unvaccinated people, virus will have new variants: virus will stay with us).

> "It is just that this c19 vaccine is a bit different: did not yet stand the test of time and it is in many cases a whole new therapy (mRNA therapy's debut)."

At this point, surely the various c19 vaccines are the most highly scrutinised and widely administered vaccines developed in the past 50 years or so. More than 6 billion shots administered, and counting. How much more time do you need?

Speaking specifically to the Pfizer vaccine, it’s gone from 95% effective against preventing severe symptoms against the Alpha variant to 88% against Delta in less than 6 months of the vaccine being widely available to the public (With some even less optimistic peer-reviewed studies coming out of Israel, I’m just going by what the CDC is reporting). So under these circumstances, maybe it makes sense to wait a year or two before making claims about the long-term effectiveness of the vaccines. If they aren’t effective long-term some people might make different decisions about what vaccine they decide to take.

The mRNA vaccines were developed to target the spike protein of the Alpha variant. We got lucky it works so well against Delta, or else they would have had to roll out a new vaccine.

Based on your wording, it sounds like you have the mistaken impression that the mRNA vaccines are expected to account for and target all future variants. A future variant may have a large enough mutation to the spike protein and render them 0% effective. But they can rollout a new vaccine very quickly with EUA. Sorry if I've misinterpreted.

I don't remember ever seeing #s promising long term effectiveness, but eventually later seeing a chart with projected effectiveness waning over time. What they should do is be careful to present variant specific numbers. There's too much generalizing, like I did as well, lumping Pfizer and Moderna together.

My comment was in regard to vaccine safety/side effects, not long-term efficacy.

If it is quite safe but ineffective I also dont want it.

They are proven to be highly effective at preventing severe cases of Covid-19, including the delta variant.

What we don't know (yet) is whether that efficacy will still be as strong 2, 3, or 5 years down the track. But that, IMO, is not a good reason not to get the vaccine today. Trust me, you don't want Covid!

I literally want it. I prefer the virus over the treatment if the chances are 99.9%+ that I survive it. I expect it to me more like 99.99%+.

I say so since the beginning (when there was no vaccine): let me get it so I can help in old folks homes.

But what I got was mandates/lockdowns and free mRNA treatments. Not taking the jab means lots of hassle. I see what govts are doing to us. I dont like that. So I resist.

> How much more time do you need?

well it's not like you can study long term effect by virtue of having a very large large short term datasets, no matter how much large the current dataset is.

My comment was in regard to vaccine safety/side effects, not long-term efficacy.

Flu vaccines are only really effective for a single season. Hopefully it’s longer, but even if c19 vaccines give you only 1-2 years protection before requiring a booster, I’d say that’s still pretty good.

The 3-5 year clinical trial like all of the previous vaccines.

‘flu vaccines roll out annually and certainly don’t get 3-5 year clinical trials.

Those are not entirely new vaccines, though. They're just slightly modified from before

That is a pretty naive take on “safe”. Would you like for me to list the MANY actually tested and approved drugs that turned out to have nasty or deadly effects realized years later which resulted in them being pulled? It is actually stunning to see such trust in something so untested in real world situations knowing from who is producing it. Oh I could list many other drugs! This not even counting drugs like OxyContin or benzodiazepines.

> How much more time do you need?

Test of time. How come there's a recall for pregnant women? While a few days ago they were still pushing those pregnant to get jabbed?

> the most highly scrutinised and widely administered vaccines

Where do you get yr data from? Is not polio vaccine administered to more people world wide?

Are we even talking about 1 product? There are many c19 and many polio vaccines. All can have unique problems.

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