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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

You mean the first mRNA vaccines ever brought to market? Because it’s not like there’s a long list of things companies have thought we’re safe that turned out to have harmful long term side effects.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a compliant, rule-following Asian, so I got my two shots despite having natural immunity. But it’s pretty wild that we forced everyone and their kids to get a novel vaccine—the first commercial products in a whole new class of vaccines—in response to a poorly understood disease that wasn’t a significant threat to young and middle aged people. Like, it wasn’t polio or smallpox which could routinely cripple or kill kids.

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Why are we changing the goalposts here? Your comment was about how rare deaths were for COVID-19 for the cohort you selected. Now do deaths from vaccines for the same cohort. Trying to reframe this as a "we forced people to take something we didn't understand" is FUD.

> Your comment was about how rare deaths were for COVID-19 for the cohort you selected. Now do deaths from vaccines for the same cohort.

The emphasized part is you moving the goalposts. If you want to assert that already low-risk individuals can further reduce their death rate using the vaccine (undoubtedly true), then it's entirely fair to ask whether doing so creates unknown, long-term risks.

For your younger people--who are unlikely to die from either COVID or the vaccine--the long-tail risks of a brand new category of vaccine are meaningful. My kids shrugged off COVID (before the vaccine was available) in half a day. We gave them the vaccines anyway, because we're sheeple. Hopefully, these new mRNA vaccines behave just like traditional vaccines and don't create any additional long-term risks. But let's not pretend we have decades of experience with these vaccines to prove that fact.

> The emphasized part is you moving the goalposts. If you want to assert that already low-risk individuals can further reduce their death rate using the vaccine (undoubtedly true), then it's entirely fair to ask whether doing so creates unknown, long-term risks.

Hard disagree. Unknown, long-term risks apply equally to both. However, I'd agree to mutually change the goal posts. Do deaths and long term damage for both vaccines and COVID-19 in the cohort.

> But let's not pretend we have decades of experience with these vaccines to prove that fact.

We also don't have decades of experience with COVID-19...

Except since the vaccines don’t prevent you from getting covid, the long term risks you’re comparing are: risks from covid versus risks from covid plus risks from the vaccine.

Citation needed.

You need a citation for the claim the vaccines don't prevent covid or transmission of covid?

Yes? Do you just accept blanket claims like that without thought?

It seems like your argument is [value of vaccine] = [reduction in death] - [unknown long term risks of vaccine]

And if you're risk of death is low enough that swamps the third term. But I think you're modeling this incorrectly. It's actually [value of vaccine] = [reduction in death] - [unknown long term risks of vaccine] + [unknown long term risks of novel virus]

And this case it almost always makes sense to take the vaccine.

Your equation assumes the vaccine prevents you from getting covid, which it doesn’t. Many people I know got covid multiple times after being vaccinated. So the risk of long term effects from covid are baked in. On top of that, you add any additional risks from the vaccine.

It assumes that the vaccine greatly reduces your risk of sequelae from Covid because the infection is much milder.

The vaccines are certainly more harmful for certain groups, like young men and more likely to cause certain conditions (like retinal occlusion).

Citation needed.

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