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Comment by Proven | Hacker News Reader

> The best way to not get long Covid is to not get Covid, and the best way to not get Covid is to be well vaccinated and boosted and have a good level of antibodies to stop the virus getting in.

I know people who got multiple jabs and have had Covid-19 several times already. These suggestions are useless.

> in those breakthrough cases in the vaccinated people, your chance of long Covid is further reduced perhaps by another 50 percent.

If it's reduced by only 50%, with Long Covid being so rare I'd rather take my chances and remain unvaccinated!

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Take your chances with what? The vaccine was free for me all 3 times I had it. When I had Covid post-vaccine it was much more mild than when I had it pre-vaccine, though there are several confounding variables present there.

What risk do you perceive from being vaccinated that makes it at least as risky as covid and long covid? You feel like shit for a day, true.

The fact that mRNA based interventions have never before been deployed and as an individual it’s sensible to be cautious about using them until there is long term safety data?

We don't have long term safety data on any covid variant either...

No, but we do have an enormous amount of data on viruses in general. “The unknown” is limited to the unique attributes of a specific virus, and any common attributes across viruses in general or related-and-well-studied are low risk for producing unexpected long term effects. For mRNA interventions on the other hand, “the unknown” covers the entire mechanism.

> For mRNA interventions on the other hand, “the unknown” covers the entire mechanism.

Why do you think that? mRNA interventions have been researched and tested for a while, this was just the first big real-world application. But that's very different from saying that mRNA interventions haven't been well-studied. You'll have to provide actual research comparing long-term dangers of viruses with existing long-term mRNA tests to make this claim and convince anyone.

Only if you believe that the risks of mRNA vaccination is higher than the (extra) risk of covid. In my estimation taking the vaccine is the prudent and cautious choice, and the scientific consensus has to be wrong by a large margin for your position to turn out to be more prudent.

If the scientific consensus is contradicting basic system component risk analysis, then yes we unfortunately have to ignore it. I too am deeply disturbed by this.

Personally, having been led on wild goose chases by the medical system before in life led me to also be wary of any magic solution with no long term testing. Pretty much everything has side effects - even the most safe drug or supplement has tradeoffs. For example, taking PPIs which are very safe will cause malabsorption of B12 over time leading to various health issues.

The risk from being vaccinated against covid isn't "you feel like shit for a day". That's not a worry for most people.

Is injecting a person with mRNA that makes them produce a particularly nasty spike protein zero risk? No. Is this spike protein one of those? Does it end up where it shouldn't?

In 2023 that information is not available. Not true or false, but simply unavailable.

> zero risk?

That wasn't the question. The question was whether it's more risky than COVID.

Is injecting people with mRNA via lipid nanoparticles to prompt their bodies to produce Covid spike protein less risky than Covid?

I don't think in 2023 that question is answerable. It's not a "yes" or "no" right now, although I've erred on the side of "yes" until proven otherwise.

> Is injecting a person with mRNA that makes them produce a particularly nasty spike protein zero risk? No. Is this spike protein one of those? Does it end up where it shouldn't?

Aren't you getting the same spike protein when you're infected by COVID, which is more likely if you're not vaccinated? That would mean the vaccinations reduce your exposure to the spike protein.

> Aren't you getting the same spike protein when you're infected by COVID

That's the entire goal. But is it the same spike protein? Does it end up in the same tissues as COVID? Does the mRNA delivery & creation vector matter?

I rolled the dice and got triple-vaxxed, on the assumption that I'm better off than getting covid with a naive immune system, but I wasn't under any illusions that it's anything but a some-unknown-%-loaded-in-my-favor dice roll.

There wasn't enough time to wait years and see what the outcomes are, and also most people on the planet were guaranteed to get covid soon anyway.

> But is it the same spike protein?

As far as I'm aware, yes.

> Does it end up in the same tissues as COVID? Does the mRNA delivery & creation vector matter?

I haven't seen any evidence for different tissue, or effects due to mRNA delivery & creation. Given how big the anti-COVID-vax movement and industry is I feel fairly sure that any such issues would have been found by now.

> I rolled the dice and got triple-vaxxed, on the assumption that I'm better off than getting covid with a naive immune system, but I wasn't under any illusions that it's anything but a some-unknown-%-loaded-in-my-favor dice roll. > There wasn't enough time to wait years and see what the outcomes are, and also most people on the planet were guaranteed to get covid soon anyway.

I think this is a fair way of putting it, but at the same time it feels like the potential criticisms towards the vaccines always far outweigh any such criticisms towards COVID itself.

> As far as I'm aware

> I haven't seen any evidence

> I feel fairly sure

> it feels like

I'm not perfect, so I qualify my statements. What is your issue with that? Would you like it better if I pretended that I know everything with 100% certainty?

That is my point: none of this well understood, by you/me/anyone, and it's absurd to assume it is.

Absolutely none of our base assumptions related to these mRNA vaccines don't require extreme scrutiny. It's not tinfoil-hat territory to say so.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't do further research in mRNA interventions, or that it's perfectly understood. I'm arguing that we also don't understand COVID well, and that we should use similar levels of care for both, instead of treating COVID as fully understood and only looking at mRNA with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Table 3 and 4 of this UK government information state the number of vaccinations needed in my age/health bracket to prevent a severe hospitalization exceed the number at which we’d expect at least one serious adverse effect — that is, they do more harm than good.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

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