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Comment by coolso | Hacker News Reader

Two huge reasons: one, ingesting a potentially harmful substance has almost always been considered far less dangerous than getting it injected into you. Hence aversion to needles, blood, etc. Ever seen COPS? Even the most experienced police officer will “freak” at the sight or suspicion of a needle and everything changes.

Secondly, and this one applied to me: given how new the vaccine is, and the slight chance of heart inflammation and blood clotting among other things, many people would rather passively get COVID through no fault of their own, and very likely recover from it easily like most, rather than purposefully get a shot which means they’re directly playing a role in, in their mind, potentially bringing harm to themselves.

I waited 8 months of general availability of the vax, and then I was comfortable enough with the (lack of) side effects to overcome fear #2.

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I guess that makes sense but the side-effects seem overblown in my opinion. Even with being susceptible to the side-effects it is very unlikely that catching the virus unwittingly is going to be better. I haven't found any studies on comparative outcomes with respect to the virus vs the vaccine when it comes to side-effects but whatever I could find so far indicates that for those that are susceptible to the side-effects of the vaccine the virus is much worse because it attacks all tissues indiscriminately. [1]

1: https://epi.ufl.edu/articles/covid-19-blood-vessel-damage.ht...

Well, hindsight is 20/20. Speaking to my own thought process, many a drug/theory scientists were “sure” about, until it turned out they were wrong. Couple that with the fact I know closely plenty of people who got the Wuhan coronavirus and weren’t vaccinated, and it was like a typical cold for them, with sone slight difference like temporary loss of smell.

But, I also knew a couple family/friends of friends who were older and obese who were hospitalized from it.

I agree that the side effects are overblown. But so is much of the hand wringing over getting the vaccine or not getting it.

Which specific drugs and therapies are you talking about? I followed the development of the vaccine and it was clear from day 1 that this was the safest vaccine that scientists had ever managed to develop. It's really a marvel of biological engineering. The same techniques are now being utilized to develop therapies for cancer and HIV. [1]

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28101688/

I'm referencing drugs, and scientific theories, in the past, not specifically these vaccines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs

Here also is a CNN article titled "Past vaccine disasters show why rushing a coronavirus vaccine now would be 'colossally stupid'" from just a year ago (prior to the election) listing several instances of vaccines-gone-wrong:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/health/eua-coronavirus-vaccin...

The CNN article is about rushing approval before there was data available to show that it was safe for large scale deployment. Following the development of the vaccine convinced me that the folks working on Project Warpspeed [1] went above and beyond in making sure everyone was following strict protocols in gathering data to verify safety and efficacy. The example given in the article is about vaccines with attenuated viruses and mRNA vaccines are not attenuated viruses which removes a whole bunch of safety issues, hence why these vaccines are the safest form of anti-viral immune therapy that has been developed by modern science.

1: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-319

> The CNN article is about rushing approval before there was data available

Or, it was about spreading FUD before the election, the very same FUD they'll crucify you for today. (For the record I agree with the article. But the bias is clear given the context regarding when it was released.)

> The example given in the article is about vaccines with attenuated viruses and mRNA vaccines are not attenuated viruses which removes a whole bunch of safety issues, hence why these vaccines are the safest form of viral therapy that has been developed by biologists and virologists.

And, yet, what they all have in common is they're vaccines, made by human beings, who are not infallible. Hence the reticence by many in the general public, including myself, to rush to go get one. We're not really disagreeing here, but I'm giving you a window into the mind of those who aren't as quick to endorse an injection into their body as you are, or as I was after waiting half a year.

I never said I rushed to get the vaccine. I had been infected twice in the first few waves so I knew I was immune. I just got the vaccine because I knew it was safe and it would give me a boost against the oncoming future waves of infection since it was also clear that there would not be enough vaccine uptake for herd immunity and I wanted to hedge my bets and make sure I was immune to whatever variant the vaccine was designed for.

> I haven't found any studies on comparative outcomes with respect to the virus vs the vaccine when it comes to side-effects<snip>

Since nearly all academic research is funded by pharma, you will never find research that goes against pharma that is sourced from an institutional setting. And those outside that system who do publish their studies are swiftly labeled as quacks by the pharma PR apparatus, and pursued by captured state licensing boards professionally. And I might add, such character assassination is readily repeated without scrutiny by many smart individuals.

What point are you actually making? I didn't say there would be no comparative studies but that I had been unable to find any using my amateur research skills. If you have any data and references then present them and we can discuss whether they're valid or not.

If you’re interested, lookup FLCCC. They have been tracking small scale, non-institutional studies from a frontline perspective on a wide variety of issues related to Coronavirus. And have also been dismissed and persecuted in the manner I described.

I'm not interested in people that think they're constantly being dismissed and persecuted.

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