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Comment by neither_color | Hacker News Reader

It's not deadly enough for me to consider a booster, I'll pass on this supplementary shot https://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-has-not-seen-any-repor...

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Not deadly enough _to you_. I'm sure those who are vulnerable will thank you immensely for your compassion.

Does the Pfizer jab infection and prevent transmission to others? I thought I saw Fauci and Walensky (CDC) recently lamenting that it doesn't. Most of what I hear people say is it prevents disease severity.

It's not a boolean — it appears that the vaccines reduce spread but do not prevent it entirely. The concerns are because that means we need higher vaccination rates to prevent spread compared to a vaccine which completely halts spread.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccinated-people...

Spot on - this annoys me so much.

So much, from quantum til cosmos, so much in life is not boolen / black or white.

"Oh, someone got sick though he was vaccinated, vaccinations don't work" "Oh, someone got sick, and didn't die, it must not be serious" "Oh, its is not an exponential curve, it is sigmodial... " "Oh but now 50% on the ICUs are still vaccinated??" "Oh, but vaccinated, transmission is still possible?!"

So many strawman and itself maybe right statements, but wrong conclusions drawn.

I would hope we could educate ourselves better, it is not just booleans, it is also not just relative percentages, it is never simple.

It is also always about absolute numbers, it is also about probability theory, it is even more about also conditional probability (that seems so counterintuitive to many) .. etc. etc.

But people stick to argue with single observations or boolean statements as the gound truth so many places :( It is like children argueing "Yes it is" "No it isnt".

To come back to what you said: Yes after all we know right now: The probability of transmission is reduced on multiple levels: your virus load is smaller, your infectious time is shorter, maybe more

It's a good question. If you Google it, the first page of results has articles reporting different reductions depending on the study, number of doses, and manufacturer. The range of results from a quick glance at a few of the articles is between 11% and 71% reduced transmission.

Thanks I will check it out. Would love to understand how those square up with the many studies that discuss natural immunity and the low to non-existent reinfection/transmission rates there. I know so many people who recovered from covid (jabbed and unjabbed), are healthy now, and don't see a need for a jab/booster.

I got the first two shots because it seemed advisable and I was willing to roll the dice on a novel mRNA treatment due to this HN post [1]. However, I'm confused and frustrated about the messaging on the 3rd. It's either only for people 65 and older, or for everyone if you can get it, or it's mandatory to complete your vaccination, or it's going to be a seasonal thing like the flu vaccine depending on the source. For me, it's worth pausing until the messaging stabilizes -- Omicron being universally reported as relatively mild really undermines the message that continuous boosters are necessary.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26628233

Based on this it does: https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/vaccination-reduces-transmission...

It reduces infection risk on exposure substantially which translates to being less likely to spread (since you’re less likely to contract the disease in the first place).

Once infected you’re right (at least last I read) that you still shed virus, but given lower infection rate on exposure it still helps reduce spread.

I'm constantly shocked at how myopic and self-centered people are when responding to comments like this.

There are other ways that this virus impacts us all beyond just transmission. It's not all about you and your "plan" to deal with it if you get it.

For instance, it's impacting people that need medical attention unrelated to COVID. It's impacting the lives of those left behind trying to piece together the assets and debts (ICU!) of those that died from COVID without a trust or will. It's impacting those that now have to attend a large gathering to celebrate someone's life. It's pushing doctors, nurses, etc that are directly exposed to this madness to their limits, thus impacting quality of healthcare for the rest of us. It's driving up the cost of healthcare for us all. I could go on.

Besides, the non-deadlyness comes from being able to treat people in the ICU.

That means places are running out of space in their ICUs. Hence peoples cancer treatments are being delayed because there isn't the ICU space to handle these treatments.

The treatment of very ill covid cases has a massive cost in health to the general population. And the people requiring ICU space are predominantly unvaccinated. There lies some of the crux of the issue though. Because taking a vaccine to reduce change of death from 0.5% to 0.1% would feels different than taking a vaccine to reduce chance of blocking someone else's cancer treatment from 0.5% to 0.1% (numbers here are made up by me). Essentially the vaccine mostly protects others who need access to healthcare.

Do they actually prevent transmission significantly? Is there a study on this? I am curious.

I saw one study, the transmission rate of the vaccinated was around 10% lower than of the non-vaccinated.

It's good, but won't stop the virus from spreading even if everyone is vaccinated.

Hmm, what about "everyone" catching the variant that causes mostly fatigue only? I heard it is related to common cold as well.

If everyone (or the majority) caught it and went through it, we would have pretty good immunity against the more harmful variants, right?

Well, lately even the CDC finally bend their knees to the alter of Immunology updating their internal guidance on natural immunity that "overall SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG remain detectable in approximately 90% of persons who seroconvert up to 10 months to one year post-infection" [1]

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...

I always joke that we should have placed all the elders, high risk, plus whoever else wanted, in stasis for a year, and let Rona rip!

Also, "neither_color" does not know enough to make that judgement - NO ONE knows that because the data simply does not exist.

Hospitalization and death are severely lagging indicators - no one knows how deadly it is in what populations.

This is about as stupid a sentiment as HR directors demanding applicants have 10 years experience in [New_Language] two years after it is invented.

This sort of propaganda should have no place on HN

Do you always get a flu shot?

For context, the CDC reports annual hospitalizations from flu up to 710,000. So it's important to remember to always get your flu shot because it reduces transmission of another virus that can cause hospitalizations.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Yes. Next pointless strawman, please.

I never get them.

There are plenty of threats to the vulnerable in the world. Should we therefore impose coercive blanket policies on everyone and across the board under the pretext of "compassion"? Is collateral damage unimportant?

You shouldn't be downvoted for asking this question. The silence of dissent has often led to tyranny.

Why don't you provide us the death rate percentages on the "vulnerable". They're not pushing this specifically for vulnerable people. How many boosters do I have to get to protect them?

We don't know how deadly it is. This article grossly misinterprets what literally every epidemiologist is saying right now which is "we don't f***ing know, just chill and let us do our jobs".

It is irresponsible and incorrect to state "it's not deadly". We can hardly detect it, we are still doing retroactive testing to see if omicron has been around longer than thought, and to see if it resulted in deaths.

So heres the thing. That might be right, but if it turns out omicron is deadly, we have a quiver in our arrow thats ready to fly in the near future (roll outs, manufacturing and public campaign will take some time).

So in the case of a deadly fourth wave we have some strategy instead of just huck and pray.

Only reason we have any sense of normalcy is through the scientific achievement of these vaccines and the public campaigns. So yah im super happy to hear pfizer is getting ready fir this.

Are they a business and do we need to watch them? Yes, but afaik they saved our sorry butts alongside moderna.

Yes of course, but just like we can't say "it's not deadly" we can't also say "it is deadly". That's not to say we shouldn't be prepared, as you said. I think most epidemiologists agree with that.

I’m fascinated by this thinking.

Do you really want to roll the dice on an infection and long term consequences including permanent loss of smell (and taste)?

If this virus killed exactly no one but it just commonly removed one of your senses…is that not motivation enough to avoid it?

Additionally, I just got over a two week adenovirus infection and it absolutely sucked. Not the sickest I’ve been, but the most symptoms and the longest. Why would anyone want to be sick if they could avoid it?

The risk from the third shot is essentially immaterial to a healthy adult. The risk of the viral infection is somewhere between a shitty couple of weeks to permanent life altering symptoms.

Permanent loss of smell/taste is not a thing, and how would you even demonstrate it? The disease is merely 2 years old, after all.

Disinformation like yours doesn't help anybody, and makes discourse about covid more contentious than it otherwise would be.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/up-to-16-million-p...

> Permanent loss of smell/taste is not a thing

It absolutely is! Many common viruses can cause it, not just Covid.

>Do you really want to roll the dice on an infection and long term consequences including permanent loss of smell (and taste)?"

Do I want to roll the dice on taking constant boosters from a vaccine that caused me nasty side effects? For a disease that I have a .0007% chance of dying from and most likely getting mild cold symptoms?(probably even less since I'm not obese or morbidly ill already). Give me a percentage on how many people have had "long-term" loss of smell and taste.

>The risk from the third shot is essentially immaterial to a healthy adult.

What age and what sex? This idea that there's no risk to healthy individuals taking the vaccine is pure bullshit. Besides it's typically the unhealthy that need vaccination for this disease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8270733/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8416687/

I'm fascinated by this weird trend towards authoritarianism when someone else not getting vaccinated is zero threat to you. The only logical explanation for this is perhaps fear of hospital burden but right now there's still plenty of room https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization. However, if you believe this is an issue I would ask why the hospitals keep filling up when our high risk population almost 90% vaccinated....

https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccination-and-C...

I was not vaccinated because I am concerned about the effects of the spike protein on the brain. An early study showed significant damage to the blood brain barrier.[1] A more recent study shows the vaccine actually suppresses the immune system in certain individuals.[2] Natural immunity is far more robust and is long lasting whereas the vaccine has proven to wane in effectiveness over the course of a few months.[3]

Your side downplays the risk of mRNA technology when the long-term risks are in fact unknown. You also tend to ignore that there are more viable options than simply taking the vaccine or being permanently debilitated. Pfizer and Merck have an effective treatment right around the corner.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201029141941.h...

[2] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232396/immune-imprinting-cau...

[3] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

For anosmia I'd just take LSD or Psilocybin: https://twitter.com/hamiltonmorris/status/135642177740093849...

Of course, these are illegal, dangerous drugs that you can't get prescribed, so you know, just find a way.

Yeah, death is not the only consequence. My friend could barely walk for 6 months after covid and I don't think he's fully recovered even now (1+ years later). Healthy and in his 30s. My mother had a severe cough for months after covid. Neither was severe enough during the infection to be hospitalized.

Omicron isn't the only variant or even the dominate one outside of South Africa. If you've already gotten the initial doses, why wouldn't you complete your vaccination? There's only upside to it at that point

The second dose I got had me unable to work or really do anything for 24 hours so if you aren't even willing to consider that I can be on the fence for legitimate reasons then I don't know what to tell you.

> why wouldn't you complete your vaccination?

There is no indication that this would be the final dose.

It's not at all clear that it's possible to complete this vaccination. Given the discussion around the 3rd booster shot, it seems likely that Pfizer and others are shifting the market to accept the vaccine as an annual product like the flu shot.

I tend to agree. If you weren't one of the rare ones that got a severe side effect from the first two jabs like heart inflammation or neurological issues, the likelihood of you getting that from a third jab might be lower than average.

What do you mean by complete? A couple months ago 2 vaccinations was "complete".

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