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Comment by CoryAlexMartin | Hacker News Reader

I was 28 when I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine last April. I had bad flu-like symptoms for a week, which was followed by 3 months of lethargy, among other things. I can't even begin to imagine how much time I lost from that. Needless to say, I opted not to get a booster.

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I was 30 when I got COVID in October of 2020. I spent 6 months recovering from the illness with symptoms ranging from myocarditis to Reynauds syndrome. As I type this message, pain erupts in my right lung as I inhale. If I had the vaccine available to me at that time maybe I wouldn’t be experiencing a constant reminder of my illness every time I inhale.

1- We’re talking about boosters, not vaccines in general.

2- Sorry you’re unlucky. But even fully vaccinated people there are going to be cases like this. Such is life.

I think what GP meant to say is "I would've taken that vaccine/booster to reduce the chance of suffering these six months".

It's a game of chance.

Digressing, some people suffer much more than others from the vaccines, and ditto from the disease. I've wondered whether they're the same. Is it the same unknown factor at work? Does suffering for days from the vaccines mean that you're someone who'd suffer for months from the disease, or even die?

There is no direct correlation between severity of vaccine side effects and level of protection from disease.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-i...

That's not what I had in mind, actually.

Consider two possibilities, both fairly remote and I have absolutely no reason to believe that they're real.

First, suppose that the people who suffer badly from the vaccines/virus do so 100% because of some factor that comes and goes, such as having slept badly. In this case, suffering badly from a vaccine does not mean that you would suffer badly from the disease.

Second, suppose that the people who suffer badly do so 100% because of some genetic factor, such as having a single gene for a particular recessive disease. In this case, if you suffer badly from a vaccine it means that you've saved yourself even worse suffering when the disease finally finds you.

> Needless to say, I opted not to get a booster.

You're lucky if opting out is a practical choice for you. For a lot of people now, opting out means being expelled from your school or fired from your job.

Santa Clara County has started disciplining workers who don't comply with their booster mandate. (I'm not endorsing punishing workers on that basis, just noting that it is occurring.)

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2022/02/03/santa-clara-cou...

I was placed on unpaid leave by my Fortune 100 employer for not getting the injection despite being 100% remote. I will be fired on March 1.

Wow this is ridiculous. I'm not antivaxer and got all 3 shots but I cannot understand this attitude from companies and the legal framework that allows them to act like this. I assume you work in the US?

From the opposite point of view, many people consider themselves lucky that coworkers who decided to opt out are expelled/fired.

The focus should be on whether a given imposition has a net positive for society or not, rather than the imposition itself. I actually find it very indicative that the root comment's conclusion is entirely about the ROI for the individual.

It's fair to judge that not boosting doesn't have any net positive for society, but that discussion should be the focus.

I'm not aware of anyone having bad flu like symptoms for a week or 3 months of lethargy from J and J. Are you sure you didn't actually get covid? On balance that seems substantially more likely.

yep - OP got COVID.

This is kind of an example of why relying on personal experience and anecdotes is so bad. OP took intelligent countermeasures to avoid a negative outcome which was unfortunately ineffectual due to mischance.

Despite the theory making no sense OP assigned the consequences of covid to the vaccination he received not due to a sound theory but due to proximity in time and will now make measurably worse choices for decades for lack of communicating with a medical professional.

We rarely know what we don't know.

What's your sound theory (that it's the result of Covid and not a vaccine with documented side effects that he happened to take the morning of)?

Some degree of caution is warranted on the part of the individual when unwelcome side effects manifest following a drug or vaccine. Doubly so when you can find cases where others have reported the same side effects.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/comments/nnqm8u/lon...

We are also dealing with a novel (and evolving) virus and an even more novel set of vaccines. We're still learning about both. I find it silly that one could possess hubris about their stance on such a matter.

I may have misspoke when I said "bad" flu-like symptoms: they were on par with symptoms from the flu, not relatively worse (although, unpleasant), and they were all expected side effects and began the night I got the vaccine. The several months of lethargy accompanied with random pains was the unexpected part.

I was quarantining at the time and hadn't gone anywhere except the place where I got the vaccine. It would be ironic if I wound up getting COVID there, which lengthened and intensified my side effects. I hadn't considered that before.

The line to get my first covid shot was the largest group of people I had been around for a very long time. Much longer than the lockdown was.

It was about an hour of walking back and forth in the switchbacks. Outdoors in the sun.

Such is the cost of getting it during the early rush. Second shot was much quicker line, and booster I got a bit late so no line to speak of.

For what it's worth, the J&J aftermath experience for me was on par with actually having covid 8 months prior.

Having also had omni (apparently getting covid is my superpower) with symptoms on par with a mediocre sore throat, I have absolutely no desire to repeat the vaccine experience.

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