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Comment by francis-io | Hacker News Reader

Step 0 needs to be rebuilding trust in scientists. Anyone with half a brain and a memory that can go all the way back to 2020 remembers the lies told to the world.

When major health officials tell you that a covid vaccine will stop you catching covid and stop transmission, then to find out we were lied to. We might not have known back then, but we shouldn't have been told that unless we knew it to be true.

This was likely out of naivety, but it came from trusted professionals. To me, this highlighted the fact that science is a great process for finding truth, but the weak points will always be the humans.

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> When major health officials tell you that a covid vaccine will stop you catching covid and stop transmission, then to find out we were lied to.

The mRNA vaccines did protect more than 90% of the vaccinated against symptomatic infections with the original strain. Then we got new Covid variants where that wasn't the case anymore (Delta and later), but that doesn't mean we were lied to. The situation simply changed.

Everything that happened was so obviously going to happen that the entire show made me sick to my stomach. The situation never changed, we just responded to everything at the speed of the government.

In Jan 2020 I used HN to get my covid information and used it to preempt the toilet paper shortage(by 2 weeks) with: a 3 month supply of basic foods(stuff we eat anyway so no waste), any type of masks or sanitizers that were wanted, and the same for my vulnerable family members.

My mum is alive today because of my distrust of authority. Which I painfully earned starting at age 8.

Yes, the situation changed, but at least in the US the vaccine push from health and political authorities stayed on the taking point regarding the vaccine would stop you from catching and spreading the disease continued for at least three weeks until the talking point changed to “less severe disease”…which at the time was more speculation than a scientific proven result (It’s even a dubious claim today).

So, at points, there were definite lies (including a few well known ones, not related to vaccines), the lies were exposed, and the end result was distrust.

This post is a perfect example how some political groups have weaponized the messy way science works.

When the vaccines were originally rolled out, they did a great job at preventing infections and transmission. This was clearly seen in the original clinical trials and in early epidemiological data and was reported that way by officials and media outlets. However, it later turned out that COVID is much better at mutating to evade immunity than was originally assumed. While the vaccines stayed highly effective at reducing mortality, vaccinated people could get infected by and transmit the new variants. There was then a concerted effort to re-frame our lack of knowledge about coronaviruses as a deliberate lie by scientists and authorities. The insidious thing is that this strategy is quite hard to defend against. Many people are much more willing to believe in a grand conspiracy, than that we simply didn't know that much about this type of virus.

Are you suggesting that flu-like viruses are a new phenomenon? We've probably had flu-like viruses for longer than we've had the word virus! Flu vaccines are an annual event! The scientists knew exactly what would happen and were surely saying "this is what is going to happen...".

The issue is the authoritarians pushing the COVID measures had no time for actual science and didn't care about the opinions of the scientists. That was what was so galling about the follow-the-science types - they weren't listening to scientists. They were often actively obstructing any debate where scientists could argue things out in public.

Yes, pandemic coronavirus are a very new phenomenon. Only a single one (SARS) has been observed before. However, its spread was contained early enough such that its adaption to a large population was not observed. Even two of the four "common cold" coronaviruses (HKU1 and NL63) were discovered as late as 2004. Note that coronaviruses are completely unrelated to "the flu" (influenza).

And we're at the tip of the iceberg. Even the mainstream media is now covering that the mRNA shots increase the risk of stroke substantially. What else are we going to find out?

(and I'm vaccinated, but it's extremely eye opening how all this information is coming out, exactly what the REASONABLE anti vaxxers were warning about. We just don't know the side effects of a new vaccine technology, used on a new virus. It's impossible to declare it to be SAFE (which implies harmless over a long period of time) at day 0. (I'm just quoting Bret Weinstein who definitely isn't an unscientific untrained anti vaxxer).

I have not heard of this. It has not been covered on the news in my country that I know of.

Can you tell me where you have read this?

I was mainly talking about here where I live, the UK, but I expect a lot of people here are American. It seems like the CDC made this claim.

> CDC chief Rochelle Walensky said earlier this week that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick.”

https://nypost.com/2021/04/02/cdc-walks-back-claim-that-vacc...

They seem to have clarified some time later, but my point still stands. Sloppy wording causes distrust.

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