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Comment by yes_man | Hacker News Reader

https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/-/thl-monitoring-myocarditis-...

According to Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, an additional 4 cases per 100k men under the age of 30.

They also note that having covid is a risk factor for myocarditis. So perhaps still worth it to take the shot.

Possibly they are doing this to put out the antivax wildfires in social media by reacting to statistical information about risks. So as to show that when there are scientifically established risks, there will be reaction to that as well.

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Yeah, the anti-vax hockey player Josh Archibald recently caught COVID and developed myocarditis as a consequence. It's among the known sequelae.

Your risk of myocarditis from COVID is 10x-20x your risk of myocarditis from a vaccine.

(One of many many sources: https://twitter.com/awong37/status/1444825498018795521)

Tangent note: I wonder if this tweet illustrates yet another way Twitter is driving us crazy.

> Please, get vaccinated.

> I will respect your decision, but I would also like to have you on the team the next 3 seasons. Here is the data, consider getting a vaccine.

>Your risk of myocarditis from COVID is 10x-20x your risk of myocarditis from a vaccine

It really bothers me that people are still touting such numbers around as obvious, indisputable facts given the poor quality of both covid and adverse effect statistical data.

1. What are the odds that you will experience symptoms if you get myocarditis?

2. What are the odds that vaccine induced myocarditis will be reported as such? There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence of people complaining about all manner of possible vaccine reactions to completely dismissive doctors, and filling out a VAERS report is time consuming and already overwhelmed medical practitioners are unlikely to spend 30+ minutes on a report.

3. Does vaccine (or covid) induced myocarditis have long term consequences, even if asymptomatic or mild? I've read repeatedly that myocarditis of any severity represents some degree of permanent damage but have not been able to conclusively verify this statement.

4. Why are we putting so much faith into the statements and research of pharmaceutical companies who stand to gain tens (hundreds?) of billions from vaccines+boosters, when we know that these same companies have been repeatedly sued in the past for dangerous/defective medications (and vaccines) as well as deliberately sociopathic business practices? We are talking about a massive conflict of interest from parties which have repeatedly demonstrated dishonesty in the past.

And then with respect to VAERS self reporting, the average person has been convinced that the vaccine is safe and is not likely to connect strange symptoms weeks after vaccination with the vaccine, if they even know about VAERS or the European equivalent. There's far too much uncertainty in the positive data to support such a rigid social orthodoxy around expression of negative sentiment toward the vaccine.

The virus is very proinflammatory so it's not surprising that vaccines that simulate parts of the virus are also proinflammatory. There even appears to be a dose dependence: Moderna packs in a lot more than Pfizer-BNT. So there is a rational framework to think about this. What is bizarre is how people could in the same breath show a lot of fear of the vaccine but then brush off the risk from uncontrolled viral reproduction in one's body from an infection.

There are at least three reasons that an injection is not the same.

1. The sudden viral load is orders of magnitude larger than typical exposure and given the complexity of the immune system, may produce a different response. Also recall that unlike traditional vaccines this mRNA hijacks your cellular machinery to produce an inflammatory protein - so comparing it to past vaccines in this respect is invalid.

2. Again because of the complexity of the immune system, its possible that a sudden, massive injection of spike protein mRNA will not activate the immune system in the same way that a gradual infection by the full virus.

3. From what I've read, the spike protein when manufactured from snipped mRNA is then expressed on cell surfaces, in contrast to a true viral infection which releases the full viral particles into the bloodstream. This could induce autoimmune reactions which would explain many of the documented side effects.

My main point though is that many in the vocal pro-vaccine crowd are underestimating the borderline chaotic complexity of the finely tuned chemical soup that is our biology. And we are injecting an engineered substance which we know is biologically active in a novel way. It's hubris to casually presume that we got this right the first time.

Edit: for the programmers, think of it as a very clever and involved hack. And hacks can have unintended side effects, especially when the system is poorly understood.

> hijacks your cellular machinery

No. It doesn't. This is completely ignorant misinformation. Your molecular machinery for creating proteins are doing so constantly. Introducing a bit of code that produces a protein that looks like the virus is in no way "hijacking" your molecular machinery. Your machinery happily chugs along with every other of the 10s of thousands of other proteins being produced at the same time. Nothing is hijacked.

You may not like the connotation of the word but if "hijack" can be used to refer to taking over something and repurposing it for yourself, then yes, this is a "hijacking".

Especially when viruses are commonly described in the same way, since the mechanism and outcome is the same: an entity other than the human cell is controlling the output of the organelles.

In any case this is a pedantic argument and changes absolutely nothing about any of my points, nor is it misinformation.

The entire purpose of these cells is to present foreign matter. It's no more highjacking than watching a movie is hijacking your optical neurons.

It is simply presenting the information in the language of your immune system.

Technically it is nothing else than hijacking and it will lead to the cells death because it produces the foreign protein as instructed until it is killed by your immune system.

mRNA in cells are constantly degraded by nucleases. Half life is measured in hours. Not only that RNA itself is unstable at room temperature.

And what about the spike protein, which becomes embedded in and expressed at the cell wall? What do wayward spike proteins do inside cells? What are the full consequences of your immune system suddenly attacking your own cells? Are you potentially inducing permanent or semi permanent autoimmune conditions?

And such an autoimmune disease, if caused by the vaccine, would possibly be difficult to detect, especially on short timescales, and/or if no one is looking for them. Add in the stigma/silencing of professionals who criticize the vaccines and you're unlikely to get such research done/published, and it is a very real possibility that we just dosed hundreds of millions of people with a substance that may cause long term issues.

There's plenty of room for uncertainty here. It is irresponsible to suggest otherwise, regardless of the media's manufactured consensus.

[citation needed]

Next time you read something on the internet that sounds like something you would reasonably like to believe, please ask for a citation before you spread misinformation. The cell types that produce it and display it are exactly the same cell types that do it for every bit of foreign protein your immune system needs to protect against. There is nothing sneaky or take-over or unnatural about this process that happens all the time in your body.

Please stop.

Why do you assume that people critical of the vaccines aren't consuming scientific literature?

This source[1] cites the following from a dead link to the cdc website:

>Upon entering the cell’s cytoplasm, the mRNA redirects some of the cell’s protein production machinery (of which ribosomes are the workhorse) to begin producing viral spike proteins. The produced spike proteins are then incorporated into and “displayed” on the host cell’s outer membrane surface

If you want something meatier, here's a detailed source[2] discussing this very point, that because the spike protein is not manufactured with the rest of the virus, at least some S protein expression is expected at the cell surface from the vaccine, in contrast to a true covid infection. And this source links to multiple others on the same subject.

People seem to presume that any information which reflects negatively on the vaccines is automatically misinformation and/or argued in bad faith. Its incredibly toxic to productive discussion.

>The cell types that produce it and display it are exactly the same cell types that do it for every bit of foreign protein your immune system needs to protect against.

I'm not sure what you're implying here - that its normal for your cells to absorb foreign RNA and manufacture inflammatory proteins that are then expressed on cell walls and used to induce what is effectively an autoimmune response?

>There is nothing sneaky or take-over or unnatural about this process that happens all the time in your body.

I'm not saying anything about this is "sneaky" but injecting mRNA with the purpose of manufacturing inflammatory proteins is hardly "natural".

1. https://www.acepnow.com/article/how-the-covid-19-mrna-vaccin...

2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25589-1

It is perfectly fine to discuss the adverse effects of vaccines, but it is not good faith to open the discussion with a conspiratorial tone. Billions of shots have been given. That is a tremendous amount of statistical power to discern problems. There are also millions of deaths from confirmed COVID alone. It helps no one to even hint that somehow the side effects of vaccines are comparable to the real disease.

You apparently didn't understand what an APC is. APC is Antigen Presenting Cell. The entire purpose of that cell is to present bits of foreign protein to the rest of your immune system. It is full of foreign bits of protein because that is what it does. It is no more going to be hurt by presenting antigens than your neurons are hurt delivering electrical signals from sensory perceptions.

If you are going to cite literature at least understand what you're citing.

From random article [1]

> Antigen-presenting cells (APC) are cells that can process a protein antigen, break it into peptides, and present it in conjunction with class II MHC molecules on the cell surface where it may interact with appropriate T cell receptors.

APCs do not hoover up random mRNA to translate. They hoover up remnants after a carnage.

The vaccine is jabbed into the muscle, the spikes are (likely) expresses from the muscle cells, most definitely not only APC cells. Even if they were, it is not normal for APCs to be producing the proteins.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-...

It is normal for your cells to manufacture bits of RNA into proteins. It's what they do all day. There is no hijacking. Cells do this constantly. And massively parallel. If each cell could only translate one rna sequence at a time you wouldn't have made it past zygote.

It's normal for Antigen Presenting Cells to present antigens on the surface of their cell membrane. It's what they do all day.

So, yes. Every bit of the process is completely natural and normal.

[citation needed]

The claims seem incorrect.

Please stop.

No. The claim is false. There is nothing close to "hijacking" going on. They are all very standard, highly parallel molecular mechanisms. I can't help that neither of you have basic understanding of biochemistry.

Does that include the engineered quasi-mRNA in the vaccine, that was specially crafted to evade certain types of degradation?

The vaccine is not and purposefully does not act like normal mRNA. It's not even made of the same 4 building blocks.

> Does that include the engineered quasi-mRNA in the vaccine, that was specially crafted to evade certain types of degradation?

Yes; that's why it has to be stored at such a cold temperature, to stave off that degradation.

The "engineered quasi-mRNA" aspect of things isn't to evade degradation, but initial immune response so it can avoid being broken down before it can express itself. https://www.science.org/content/article/mysterious-2-billion...

> Assembling mRNA using pseudouridine, a nucleoside variant that occurs naturally in the body, greatly reduced the tendency of immune sentinels called dendritic cells to shoot out inflammatory molecules in response, they reported in 2005.

This is absolutely not how it works. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the RNA vaccine mechanism of action.

Before claiming other people don't know what they're talking about, it would be polite sufficiently understand it and refrain from making false claims yourself.

> When a vaccinated cell dies, the debris will contain many spike proteins and protein fragments, which can then be taken up by a type of immune cell called an antigen-presenting cell. [1]

Is it true that host cells need to die for the vaccine to take effect?

I'm not entirely sure and couldn't find good sources to verify or disprove OPs claim, but I recall some claims that the vaccine kills cells.

> it will lead to the cells death because it produces the foreign protein as instructed until it is killed by your immune system.

Different sites have different descriptions, but even [2] mentions:

> The priming of CD8 T cells can induce the formation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (5b) which are capable of directly killing infected cells.

Which likely means killing cells presenting the vaccine spikes? Most sites mention some form of cytotoxic action or reponse, which I do not understand, but I take it to mean that some cells are killed.

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/expl...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7918810/

The Irish Times is not a primary source. Try again.

> ... but I recall some claims that the vaccine kills cells.

You are spreading your own ignorance.

Have I claimed it is a primary source? I have listed a source, as my time is limited. If you disagree feel free to list a better one. You have listed exactly 0 sources for your claims. By logic, you are the one spreading your own ignorance.

I would especially be interested in a source claiming APCs transcribe RNA to present antigens; that antigens enter the cells; and that they (rather than you) are full of it.

Note, I think both you and OP presented false claims and misconception. OP probably more, but it is you that will help spread and affirm more anti-vaxers with the - you're wrong, here's what I think, now shut up and take the jab - attitude towards their concerns.

> Why are we putting so much faith into the statements and research of pharmaceutical companies

Nobody is.

Regulators are largely looking at facts on the ground before making decisions.

But since the vaccines are proven to be safe given hundreds of millions of doses there is a lot more willingness to trust them.

>Regulators are largely looking at facts on the ground before making decisions.

My point is that the "facts on the ground" are extremely noisy and in large part coming from the pharmaceutical companies themselves. This proof is overstated, ignoring the fact that there hasn't been enough time to detect mid-long term effects, its own can of worms.

All of this doubly so given the chilling effect of the stigma associated with what has seemingly been decided to be "misinformation". Clinicians, researchers, nurses are less willing to stick their necks out to criticize the research/data, and so the problem is dangerously self-reinforcing.

These are the same circles that gave us the opioid crisis. And suddenly we've all forgotten about regulatory capture? None of these criticisms deserve this rabid bullying. This is supposed to be science, not religious dogma.

Edit: and let's not forget that these pharmaceutical companies are legally not liable for any adverse effects. Informed consent requires freedom of discussion.

We have 50+ years of history on vaccines, billions of doses, etc.

That history of research says this: If "symptoms" don't show up within 6 weeks, they don't really show up at all.

That is to say, with ALL other vaccines in existence, issues have shown up within 6 weeks.

Here is an article which explains it, but this is like common knowledge amongst epidemiologists: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/vaccines-...

Comparing mRNA technology to conventional vaccines is borderline disingenuous. I don't think we've ever vaccinated people with live pathogens (or at least not deactivated), and we certainly have never repurposed our own cells to manufacture an inflammatory protein which then migrates to cell surfaces.

Autoimmune disorders in particular are not necessarily going to appear in 6 weeks. Especially when the data is so noisy and there's a clear, career risking stigma against reporting anything.

If there's so many sources that the risk is 10-20x, then perhaps you can choose one which is not a tweet.

One can't be expected to know what the credentials of some random doctor on twitter are and he doesn't reference any sources of his own.

I think the reasoning is, they have two vaccines, one that in rare cases causes this one that doesn't. Even if the liklihood of the side effect is very low and the severity is also pretty low (its generally not life threatening or anything), if you have two vaccines, one that causes the side effect and one that doesn't, why would you use the one that does, regardless of how insignificant the risk is in absolute terms.

The comparison isn't moderna vs no vaccine (in which case moderna would win the risk trade-off). The comparison is moderna vs pfizer.

It seems like if you take everything into account, taking the vaccine might not provide any benefit from men under 30. Any medical intervention must be beneficial to justify the use. If it's so and so, or equal risk, then it's not done.

EDIT: The alternative is not stopping vaccinations. Men under 30 are given Pfizer.

Based on the data in the study linked below, the risk for myocarditis among COVID-19 patients is 0.146%, and 0.009% among people without COVID-19 (study was done pre-vaccine).

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm

> During March 2020–January 2021, the risk for myocarditis was 0.146% among patients with COVID-19 and 0.009% among patients without COVID-19. Among patients with COVID-19, the risk for myocarditis was higher among males (0.187%) than among females (0.109%) and was highest among adults aged ≥75 years (0.238%), 65–74 years (0.186%), and 50–64 years (0.155%) and among children aged <16 years (0.133%).

The alternative is not stopping vaccinations. Men under 30 are given Pfizer.

The number of C19 fatalities under 30 in the US appears to easily exceed the number of vaccine-related myocarditis cases. The overwhelming majority of those myocarditis cases followed a benign course.

Later

Another thing to consider is that the myocarditis rate from C19 itself may exceed that of the vaccine, which would basically refute the argument against vaccination.

(By all means, pick vaccines strategically.)

It's not necessarily the same here in the Nordics.

The alternative is not stopping vaccinations. Men under 30 are given Pfizer.

But the vast majority of covid fatalities under 30, would be in people with comorbidities.

You could easily argue for vaccinating everyone with comorbidities <30, without arguing for vaccinating everyone.

Also, even in apparently benign myocarditis, there may be heart damage which will not become apparent for many years.

Vaccinations are not stopping. Men under 30 are given Pfizer.

That number for under 30’s is full of people who are extremely fat or otherwise have preexisting health problems. If you’re under 30 and seemingly healthy your fatality rate is much lower.

40% of Americans are obese. States with the highest level of obesity also have the lowest rate of vaccination.

An even higher number has a very poor idea of the state of their health. Never assume you're healthy.

To make matters worse "Only 22.2% of obese women and 6.7% of obese men correctly classified themselves as obese"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234679/

Except the risk is not 0 if you don't have comorbidities.

People keep throwing this statement out as though somehow the risk of vaccination is higher then the risks due to viral infection. It is not.

The risks of adverse reactions to COVID infection is reduced across the board if you are fully vaccinated regardless of your health status.

Also worth noting: plenty of young people have comorbidities they don't know about yet, because they haven't found them. It is actually quite difficult to exclude yourself from the "has comorbidities" risk group apriori. A common one is in fact undiscovered heart conditions for people in their 30s, since they usually only become an issue later in life when symptoms are more likely to present.

I literally wrote, “If you’re under 30 and seemingly healthy your fatality rate is much lower.”

If you’re going to disagree with me at least disagree with me.

>Another thing to consider is that the myocarditis rate from C19 itself may exceed that of the vaccine, which would basically refute the argument against vaccination

No, because you need to consider not just the odds of getting myocarditis from covid vs vaccine (Pc:Pv), but the bayesian probabilities of getting infected (Pi) or vaccinated (1) and then getting myocarditis, such that the full risk analysis would look more like Pi*Pc:Pv[1]. Point being when you are talking about vaccinating the entire population, you can easily end up in a position where there are more cases of heart inflammation from fully vaccinating the population than simply letting the virus run its course. I believe the term is relative risk reduction but don't quote me.

1. This isn't quite right, there should be a 1-x term or two in there somewhere to account for the probabilities of getting vaccinated/infected and not developing myocarditis, but its been a few years since my probability course...In any case the point still stands, that the vaccine may be less likely to cause heart inflammation does not imply that it would produce fewer cases overall if a sizeable proportion is vaccinated. To properly estimate that you need an accurate estimate for the myocarditis rate from both covid and vaccine, which I don't think anyone has.

This is true and if it was flu kind of virus with very low reproduction number, it would be right but Delta variant has very high reproduction number and it is guaranteed to infect eventually almost everyone who is without immune response against it.

There is also this fact that myocarditis has high prevalence among teenage boys (even CDC might underestimate it) and it looks like it is caused by some form of immune reaction and its occurrence is immune reaction size dependent (Moderna causes more myocarditis than Pfizer that causes more than AstraZeneca). It allows to postulate that it might be that the people who get myocarditis after vaccination have high risk of getting it after infection.

Even if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for society you cannot make that calculation. You cannot administer a vaccine to a healthy person just because it doesn't increase their risk of dying as much as it decreases someone else's risk of surviving. Young healthy men should not be coerced into accepting an elevated risk because getting to herd immunity or whatever might save old and at risk persons.

For children and healthy young people below the age of 30, Covid is mostly harmless (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717). The risk of vaccination may actually be higher since the vaccines currently used aren't fully researched nor fully approved yet. The situation is not black or white. Vaccination may be very useful for people aged 50 and above but at the same time counterproductive for children.

Can't make what calculation? The one you just conceded I could make?

I don't think that's the right question or comparison.

If this young person below 30 gets a side effect from the vaccine, is that side effect worse than what they'd get by having the virus?

It should be clear that we aren't going to suppress or eradicate covid, so you shouldn't be comparing getting the vaccine or nothing happening, but getting covid with or without the vaccine

It doesn't matter if the virus is worse than the vaccine since the vaccine is intentionally administered. Someone who is cautious might attempt to avoid the virus altogether thus their risk might be much lower than the average.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that Covid won't mutate so that you will have to refill your vaccination every year to stay immune like with vaccines against the flu. If so, mass vaccinations probably won't be employed again and we'll only vaccinate at risk groups.

Good luck with avoiding it. Scotland had no restrictions and when they opened schools, about 8% of 12-15 children got infected within first 5 weeks. Delta variant is so infectious that it will not disappear until about 90% of all the people are immune to it. For seasonal flu only 25% is required.

More precisely shouldn't we be comparing the number of life years lost. If for every young healthy person that develops myocarditis or increases his lifetime cancer risk by 1%, how many 84 year old getting to live another year, is worth the risk to the young healthy person.

There are additional questions here. How long does vaccine immunity last? How many shots do you need? Does the risk of side effects add up or is an absence of side effects indicative of further shots being safe?

With an endemic Covid, how often will people get an infection on average?

It isn't a too trivial calculation at all.

There is a surprising lack of mention of long covid. Good stats from a competent public health agency like NHS would be welcome.

your source is about people <18, not <30.

I mean, yeah. If vaccines don't protect against virus spread... Fuck it, let people decide. Either take a vaccine or risk getting Covid in the wild.

Just make it so you can't use a hospital bed in that case. It's only fair to people who are actually forced to go to the hospital, as opposed to gambling for it.

Should smokers be denied medical treatment related to that choice too?

If they overwhelmed the medical system to the detriment of others then yes. And this is coming from an ex smoker who knew it was bad for you when begun smoking. Now this is slightly different for other age groups that started their habit when the tobacco industry were paying doctors to promote smoking.

Fortunately, I don’t know anyone addicted to getting the vaccine daily, so the proposed choice is nonsensical.

Smokers are routinely denied organ transplants if they refuse to quit. Same thing for alcohol.

"Heart and lung transplant candidates must be free of nicotine and tobacco use, including chewing tobacco, for six months prior to an initial listing."

https://www.osotc.org/resources/tobacco-abstinence-criteria/

Yes. And heroin addicts, and morbidly obease people.

This line of reasoning goes to a dark place. You can't know what makes sense in someone else's life. A heroin addict self-medicating unbearable pain is, to me, a tragic figure deserving help. A morbidly obese person may be suffering from an undiagnosed underlying condition that makes diet and exercise impossible. A smoker may need the stress release.

Should we refuse to treat any injury sustained by the Wright brothers during their experimental flights? Surely that's highly dangerous highly voluntary stuff. Should we refuse to rescue hikers if they become lost or trapped? Should the coast guard never help recreational sailors? Should we have to submit to a proscribed diet exactly to prove we deserve medical care? Should we forgo treatment for tendonitis if it can be shown we ignored known warnings about typing too much?

To me, people are precious, and they lead messy, imperfect lives. They make bad decisions and good ones, and decisions I don't understand. They'll take risks I never would in pursuit of goals I don't see as valuable. Sometimes, when you really get to know someone, a decision that didn't make sense from a distance really starts to. And sometimes people are being self-destructive and there's no more to the story, and sometimes it's something they go through and come out the other side of.

My conviction is to love and help them no matter what.

Sometimes I can't, and that's a different thing, but deciding that someone doesn't deserve help is a level of judgement I don't want and can't justify. Maybe what they were doing really was worth it. I don't know. Even if it's not, it's essential to let people try.

I would find someone else trying to exert this degree of control over my life - requiring me to comply with their particular take on what risks were worth it - suffocating and unbearable. I am sure others feel the same way, about control in areas in which I wouldn't mind it because I happen to already be normal. So I am against it on principle. People need to be people, in all their messy glory. And we should help them if we can, regardless of how they got there. I think the only case in which I would act differently was if I thought letting someone suffer natural consequences was for their best - and I would have to be incredibly sure.

Leaving people to a fatal condition when we could help them is incomprehensible and inhumane to me, and represents a dangerous level of escalating disagreement into dehumanization.

I should clarify that I live in the free world, where healthcare is a right and broadly speaking provided by society. Additional helathcare is of course available on a pay basis. However, to clarify, my comment was in regard to this system.

> Should we refuse to treat any injury sustained by ...

You break it you buy it. Should the state and society in general be expected to shoulder the burdeon for people who chose to put themselves in danger, should 10 people be sent into danger to save the sailor who makes the choice to take on a hurricane?

Who do we save if we can only save 1 person, the heroin addict with a fatal condition we can probably save or the child that would be a flip of a coin?

> My conviction is to love and help them no matter what.

What of the children of the helicopter crew flying into the hurricane to save the lone sailor? No love and help for them? Or the person who doesnt get a bed because it is take up by others?

> I would find someone else trying to exert this degree of control over my life - requiring me to comply with their particular take on what risks were worth it - suffocating and unbearable?

Your choices are other peoples consequences. As a functioning member of society, philosophically you comply with these things on a constant basis, and no doubt demand it of others. It is not a matter of principle, it is simply a question of where the line is. If you have ever complained about anything you have exerted your control over someone elses life.

Sometimes you cannot help everyone and have to make hard choices, but be wary: atrocities don't happen in a vacuum. Behind every historical Red Terror or Holocaust is a narrative, and it almost always goes along these lines: they're a danger to us and they deserve it. Even the eugenicists had a (temporarily) convincing tale.

You cannot rely on "being right this time" to avoid participating in tragedy. The liars are too good. But you can refuse to hate and dehumanize those you are told to.

If you truly believe that medical care is a human right, then you should extend it to every human, regardless of how they wound up in the situation they're in. While you sometimes do have to choose, it is abhorrent to choose the rich over the poor, the socially well-adjusted over the outcasts, ideological friends over ideological foes. The standard we actually use is to do the absolute best you can for everyone you can.

You're right that it doesn't make sense to cause greater harm to avoid lesser, but rationing too quickly, especially from a place of moral judgement rather than medical triage, seems much more likely to be coming from a place of spite than a place of tragic necessity. We take care of enemy soldiers. We take care of people on death row. We take care of people who would see us dead, because this is what civilized and humane people do. If you are quick to deny care to people you perceive as not doing their part, you're coming from a perspective much, much darker than the general thought and ethics of this civilization.

I know everyone is angry and has suffered in the last couple years, and I know everyone wants to fight. There are people running around right now stirring up that anger and trying to direct it at their ideological enemies. By all means, fight for what you think is right. But if you find yourself indifferent to the death of your fellow man or even cheering for it, beware - it may make sense to you right now, but that will be no comfort in five or ten or twenty years if what you wish for comes to pass and you have to remember cheering for it.

Vaccines do protect against spread though. Not perfectly mind you, but the effect is still significant if a significant portion of the population is vaccinated.

It never did.

> They also note that having covid is a risk factor for myocarditis. So perhaps still worth it to take the shot.

No: Absolutely not worth it to take that particular shot, as there are others available which don't have that side effect.

Viral myocarditis is serious but not life threatening and self-resolves in less than a year; the vaccine-induced cases are even more mild than that.

Is it likely that if both the vaccine and the virus cause it, that the symptom could be related to the spike protein itself?

In that case, I'd expect all of the vaccines to have a similar risk, and it's only been spotted in one so far

It has been clearly spotted in 2 mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna). There is limited information about vector based vaccines.

It is fairly clear that adverse effect is dose dependent and it may be the reason why we do not see that many with vector vaccines - immune system creates some immunity against the vector virus and actual amount of vaccine entering cells is limited. It is also evident from the limited immune response from vector vaccines.

The data I've seen seems to show that the Moderna vaccine is the best of them in terms of long-term efficacy against breakthrough infection and hospitalization. I got Pfizer, and honestly I wish I would've had Moderna regardless of some very slim chances of myocarditis. My increased chances of getting a breakthrough infection on the Pfizer vaccine outweigh my chances of getting myocarditis on Moderna.

The best available data suggests that _that_ particular shot is rather more effective after a few months than its competitors.

That's very unclear, since people who got Moderna are getting fewer breakthrough infections that people who got Pfizer, and are being hospitalized less (from studies by the Mayo Clinic and confirmed elsewhere). So you can't look just at side effects, you also need to look at effectiveness. They could inject you with a placebo known to be side effect free.

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