Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonlaramburu | Hacker News Reader

>ah yes, adaptation to science when I do it, goal post moving when others do it.

Parent mentioned moving goal posts, not I.

>maybe those other people adapted to new facts coming in such as side effects of the vaccine and already contracting covid and decided not to get it.

The facts show that vaccine side effects are generally mild, vaccination reduces transmission by 5X or more and that natural immunity offers inferior protection to vaccination. If you have convincing evidence showing otherwise, I encourage you to present it.

View on HN

natural immunity offers greater protection than the vaccine, you're thinking of combined vaccine + natural immunity.

vaccine side effects range from mild to death. https://openvaers.com/covid-data

OpenVaers is a public reporting tool - anyone can type data into there. Unfiltered, it is basically junk, and claiming it as data against the COVID-19 vaccines is dishonest scaremongering.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-viral-posts-misus...

Hospitals directly report to VAERS as well. We've had this system in place for a reason, you need a way to track anecdotal reactions in individuals that suffer extreme reactions or death that were otherwise healthy.

There's countless instances of healthy people dying right after the shot, doesn't matter if you wish it away.

Yes it may be a small amount percentage wise, but the more you scale the more absolute deaths you get.

> Hospitals directly report to VAERS as well. We've had this system in place for a reason

Correct, and this is not the reason. You are misusing it.

> There's countless instances of healthy people dying right after the shot,

Calling BS on that, it's not "Countless", far from it. And it needs to be compared to the - far worse - risks of COVID. This statement is dishonest scaremongering.

>natural immunity offers greater protection than the vaccine, you're thinking of combined vaccine + natural immunity.

No. There is no consensus on the duration of natural immunity, nor do we know how effective it is against variants. We do have confidence in the duration of vaccine-derived immunity and its performance against existing variants (https://www.newsweek.com/natural-covid-immunity-delta-varian...).

>vaccine side effects range from mild to death

You've not provided convincing evidence of this.

From the VAERS website: VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.

Maybe someone should investigate each of these reports :)

Can I ask you why you think we have the VAERS system?

These reports are investigated. The number of deaths reported to VAERS is inconsistent with results of clinical trials for the major COVID vaccines.

VAERS was created as a provision of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986. The NCVIA was enacted because manufacturers of childhood vaccines could not obtain robust liability insurance.

> These reports are investigated. The number of deaths reported to VAERS is inconsistent with results of clinical trials for the major COVID vaccines.

A clinical trial !== an investigation into the report. Do you know what the investigation for each of these reports concluded or are you assuming they were "inaccurate".

Have you read these detailed submissions of VAERS? It's very hard to conclude anything other than the vaccine does have adverse effects in some people.

All that can be concluded from VAERS is that some number of people reported these effects after claiming to take the vaccine. It does not imply causation nor can we infer correlation. This is why clinical trials were done before the vaccines received an EUA.

It can be proven when they took the vaccine, they don't just "claim it", they took it.

Some people suffered shortly after and were otherwise healthy. It's definitely a red flag to look into.

I am as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy. That being said, all the data I've seen shows that the risk of covid complications is significantly higher than the risk of covid vaccine complications. If the fear of vaccine adverse effects is the only thing that keeps you from getting a vaccine, consider getting the vaccine.

Right, my question though is the small risk of the vaccine worth it if you already have good immunity from a previous infection?

Personally I think that's up to the individual to decide depending on their bout with covid and how they feel about their chances with the vaccine.

Maybe they've had previous reactions with another vaccine, maybe medical family history, I don't know.

That's why I'm against mandates period.

We are on the same page. Nobody should ever be forced to take a medication they don't want. Some people ride motorcycles on the freeway, or do wingsuit jumps, or surf bigwaves, or ski the backcountry, or freesolo el Capitan. I guess it's more fun than getting a bad case of covid, but either way, more power to them.

The only point I'm making is that VAERS data by itself is negligible compared to the effects of covid itself. I understand that it can be frustrating to interact with 2-masks+3-jabs+forever-lockdown+kill-unvaxxed crowd, especially given the political power it wields in the real world, but IMHO the VAERS data does not make a strong case for passing on the vaccine.

My only point for VAERS is that there are instances of people reacting to the vaccine. Yes anecdotes should be verified, but they do exist as does the small chance of a reaction.

So that small reaction should be enough for people with immunity from a previous infection to say, "hey, that's my reason". Not that they need one :)

> Not that they need one :)

Exactly! None of your damn business how other people handle their health. Go cower in the basement if you can't handle a (hopefully temporary) less than 15% increase in the death rate for your age cohort.

https://data.cdc.gov/resource/3apk-4u4f.csv

> I am as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy.

What does this mean? Vaccine mandates for certain jobs and circumstances are what we are getting, and this is _not_ "mandatory vaccination".

And in fact these mandates enjoy broad support (1). Do you expect the people who agree to be shouting about this? Of course they are not. The only people worked up about it are the minority who don't like it, for various reasons, most of them IMHO misguided, factually incorrect, poorly evidenced, or coming from faulty understandings of relative risk. Echo chambers that make it feel that "people are with us" even with small groups with extreme positions are an unfortunate fact of modern online life. As is disinformation.

The next time that I am on an aircraft or in a restaurant, I would be very happy to hear that everyone else there, staff and customers, are also vaccinated. And that goes triple for if by some misfortune I have to go to a hospital.

I'm not asking that people "be forced to take a medication they don't want" (you are still mischaracterising it as "mandatory vaccination") but it's a stretch that they should ask to opt out of safety measures, and then still insist on being an ICU nurse. Sorry, no. Choices have consequences. it's just such an easily avoidable risk.

But what about their job? What about it? If truck driver goes blind, are you going to let them keep their job out of pity, never mind the damage that it will do?

Most people understand this logic. If you're "as appalled by the mandatory vaccination push as the next guy" then ... since the median next guy isn't appalled much, you aren't appalled much?

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/09/16/polls-sh...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/poll-support-vaccin...

And plenty more evidence, at google: "vaccine mandate support"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com