152 karma · joined April 12, 2021
EDIT: Thought I'd come across a study indicating that from 2006, but I can't seem to find it. Let's settle on mid 2010's instead because the point is mostly that there was research showing anti-viral properties before the pandemic started, and therefore it was a very logical thing for frontline doctors to try on their patients.
It's a lot harder to say how a fully vaccinated population will fare compared to a fully unvaccinated population. In the short term the unvaccinated population will certainly fare worse (more sick, more dead), but at a population level they will develop a stronger, longer lasting immunity and exert no mono-directional pressure. While in the fully vaccinated population, as long as the R0 is over 1 (which looks to be the case) the virus will be driven towards escape variants, it might not matter how many more people remain asymptomatic or how many fewer people die when new variants keep driving the pandemic forward and render the vaccines ineffective. It's population-level immunity that ends pandemics, immunity works very different on a population level than on an individual level.
Rather ironically if it turns out that this is indeed the case, then the people getting the vaccine are the "selfish" ones (protecting themselves short term from serious disease/death at the long term cost of the wider population) rather than the ones refusing the vaccine. Of course that's not entirely fair because people are doing it with the best of intentions and not out of "selfishness". I'm pointing this out more to demonstrate that things just aren't as simple as the media likes to portray it, i.e. with the non-vaccinated as the "selfish" ones.
If it turns out that vaccination campaigns do indeed do more harm to the population long-term than good (something we'll likely only know for certain after the pandemic is over or, more likely at this point, has become endemic), then medicine such as Ivermectin, even if only marginally effective at combating COVID starts to look a lot more interesting because it does not exert those same pressures on the virus.
There's several other ways the vaccines could end up hurting us in the long term, such OAS (Original Antigenic Sin) or ADE (Anti-body Dependent Enhancement), although it's looking really good on those fronts right now so I'm not worried about those.
The discourse going on at the moment on in general is really cancerous (even on HN sadly). As much as I find people who believe that there is no virus, or that vaccines are made to kill people, or following health advice from random internet sensations to be ridiculous, I find myself far more worried by the lack of intelligent discussion and the instant demonization and name-calling of anyone who asks questions that are critical of the vaccination campaigns. A large part of that I think is that the anti-vaxxers have been given so much media-attention (negative) that people assume anyone putting forward critical opinions "must be one those" and can be dismissed without notice.
No one knows what time will tell. Maybe this only has a one-in-a-thousand chance of ending up being the case. But I think it would be wise for people pushing for mandates to think about how society will look back at the COVID19 pandemic in say 50 years, if it turns out that the vaccination campaigns had a net-negative long-term effect. Is that really a risk we are willing to take? My take is that it would be wise to keep safe in any way we can: mask up, disinfect, get sun, keep fit, socialize responsibly, etc. And to avoid radical action before the science is settled, and vaccine mandates are radical. Science has a long history of settling on wrong for a while before getting it right, let's give it some time.
Seeming to be doing something useful is more important to that end than actually doing something useful, hence their colorful history of creating easy problems to fix and then solving them to great fanfare, particularly well-documented in the aftermath of 9/11.
It's much safer to find mentally unstable people, surround them by undercover agents and get them to incriminate themselves than it is to go after actual criminals.
Just don't count on it to wake you up, the alarm clock doesn't always wake the phone on Manjaro+Phosh.
Spreading rumours absolutely helps pay the bills, it's almost an essential part of the experience of going to the pub in a small town that only has a couple.
You're right to say that there is no "large-scale" incentive though.
Everything else you do in a fight should just be in order to get to this step.
It's sad how this has to be stated every time one brings up criticism of the current vaccine strategy. For many people there's only two possible stances: "I've already taken the vaccine" and "I'm an anti-vaxxer". I also remember that back when Trump was boasting "We'll have the vaccine soon! It'll be the greatest vaccine. And then we can all go back to normal!" there was a healthy skepticism on the left of promoting nation-wide use of a rushed vaccine, but as soon as Biden took over this disappeared.
The choice isn't between the vaccine or COVID.
Politicians talking about "getting everyone medicated (or vaccinated) as soon as possible" with anything that doesn't have long-term studies should be worrying to all. And the fact that some SV companies will not allow this discourse to happen should be even more so.
If it's "killing a few companies" and "a startup doesn't end up seeing the light" then "GDPR is doing what I'd like it to do."
That's a pretty shitty opinion to hold.
What did those companies and startups do wrong? I'm as tired of stupid startups as the next person, but I won't cheer for their failure unless they actually do something wrong.