We're All Gonna Die

[Munson]

I've read enough about the vaccine and its development at this point to be way more scared of long term complications from COVID than anything from the vaccine. Being a teacher I assume I'll be in "wave 2" of the vaccine after the hospital workers and elderly/compromised, so. Shoot me up.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I'll take it. I don't want this damn virus.

I'm guessing it'll be April or May before I get it

[MDS]

id 100% take the vaccine...the only way it works is if we all take it

[PhillyPhreak54]

Wouldn't the anti vaxxers and redneck MAGAts who refuse just get sick then?

Natural thinning of the herd

[General_Failure]

There's a percentage of people who can't get it for various health reasons who rely on herd immunity that are going to continue to be boned for a while.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I wonder if some of the older Trumpers who think this is a hoax or whatever we're around when polio was rampant? I'd like to ask them if they were happy they received that vaccine

[MDS]

its something like 80% of the population needs to do it...the % of people who *cant* is not close to 20. the % of people who believe science is the jews doing is more than 20

[General_Failure]

Your Abrahamic alchemy won't catch me with my guard down.

[Diomedes]

I hesitate to say it, but there are some legit reasons to be skeptical about the vaccine(s).

Are they being rushed?  I mean, obviously the answer here is, yes.  Nevermind that the rush is for good cause, a rush is a rush.  Things can be missed when you're rushing.  It's encouraging that test groups of ~40k have shown, depending on the type of vaccine, between 70 and 95 percent effectiveness.  But let's be clear, 40k is not many people to test a vaccine against when you're about to administer the thing to billions of people.  There will be surprises.   Do you really want to be in the early groups of millions to bear out those surprises? 

There's also the question of these new mRNA drugs.  They are very very new.  The technology is exciting, and the results so far are also great...but this is not something we have any serious record for.  The old way of making vaccines--which is the type of COVID vaccine the U.K. is developing--have well established sets of data and track record.  Thousands of studies, many many millions of vaccinations, decades of data.  We don't have any of that record for mRNA.  We have a couple rushed studies, on a very small number of subjects.  Of the 75k or people in the two studies for the mRNA vaccines...start breaking those down into groups....you're going to have to vaccinate millions and millions of African Americans, from vastly different places and communities...does the 8 or 10 k subjects in the testing really give you a reliable read on how that will go writ large?  The consequences of these vaccines may not be known for years...is it smart to give the entire population a vaccine that you have only several months worth of history for?

I'm a guy who sings the praises of science, and I'm just normal fool, so I'm willing to be vaccinated as soon as it's my turn, but I'm not doing so blindly.  There are risk here.  In my judgment however, the alternative is unacceptable.  But I'm not going to be down on informed people--informed people--who decline to be vaccinated, especially by the mRNA types of vaccines. 

My wife's hospital sees this problem as well, and though they will recommend that their staff be vaccinated, and provide vaccination for free, they won't require it.  It's one thing to require the flu vaccine, which is legit, airtight science, that can stand up in court, and another entirely to require people to take these new ones.

p.s.  right or not, plenty of people remember the Polio vaccine not so much for how successful it was, but for the contaminated Cutter vaccines, which literally gave Polio to those who were given it.  You don't have much margin for error with vaccines...even a relatively small oversight can have an outsize affect on the willingness of the public to adopt it.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Good read and all fair points.

Being part of the non essential people who get this will help my comfort level. If the distribution from Dec-Apr goes well with people then I won't have worries. Now if people start having debilitating side effects it will be a different conversation.

Speaking of essential vs non. The GOPers in OK have decided that elected officials are higher up the ladder than teachers. You know, the people they're forcing to be in class around kids.

[ice grillin you]

I hesitate to say it, but there are some legit reasons to be skeptical about the vaccine(s).

Are they being rushed?  I mean, obviously the answer here is, yes.  Nevermind that the rush is for good cause, a rush is a rush.  Things can be missed when you're rushing.  It's encouraging that test groups of ~40k have shown, depending on the type of vaccine, between 70 and 95 percent effectiveness.  But let's be clear, 40k is not many people to test a vaccine against when you're about to administer the thing to billions of people.  There will be surprises.   Do you really want to be in the early groups of millions to bear out those surprises? 

There's also the question of these new mRNA drugs.  They are very very new.  The technology is exciting, and the results so far are also great...but this is not something we have any serious record for.  The old way of making vaccines--which is the type of COVID vaccine the U.K. is developing--have well established sets of data and track record.  Thousands of studies, many many millions of vaccinations, decades of data.  We don't have any of that record for mRNA.  We have a couple rushed studies, on a very small number of subjects.  Of the 75k or people in the two studies for the mRNA vaccines...start breaking those down into groups....you're going to have to vaccinate millions and millions of African Americans, from vastly different places and communities...does the 8 or 10 k subjects in the testing really give you a reliable read on how that will go writ large?  The consequences of these vaccines may not be known for years...is it smart to give the entire population a vaccine that you have only several months worth of history for?

I'm a guy who sings the praises of science, and I'm just normal fool, so I'm willing to be vaccinated as soon as it's my turn, but I'm not doing so blindly.  There are risk here.  In my judgment however, the alternative is unacceptable.  But I'm not going to be down on informed people--informed people--who decline to be vaccinated, especially by the mRNA types of vaccines. 

My wife's hospital sees this problem as well, and though they will recommend that their staff be vaccinated, and provide vaccination for free, they won't require it.  It's one thing to require the flu vaccine, which is legit, airtight science, that can stand up in court, and another entirely to require people to take these new ones.

p.s.  right or not, plenty of people remember the Polio vaccine not so much for how successful it was, but for the contaminated Cutter vaccines, which literally gave Polio to those who were given it.  You don't have much margin for error with vaccines...even a relatively small oversight can have an outsize affect on the willingness of the public to adopt it.

ditto times a thousand

[Munson]

FTR from what I've read I believe we've been poking people with rna vaccines (ie testing new ones) for 15ish years now. It took them a while to figure out what they needed to alter to make it not send immune system into overdrive, but they did

[Diomedes]

Yes, I'm aware that mRNA research has been under way for decades.  It's not mad science.

Nor however has it been used on a large scale, nevermind global.

[Munson]

True, but hard to believe there'd be more to fear from that than the typical dna-based vaccines that are out there. mRNA without the rest of the building blocks is pretty useless from what I understand. It'll instruct your cells to build the spoken proteins, your immune system will go after said proteins, and then it's not in your system anymore.

TBh the old school ways of just injecting altered viruses into the body freaks me out a lot more haha. Maybe I've seen too many movies/read too many zombie books but just feels like one of these days we're gonna make an altered virus for a vaccine that wipes us out lol

[Rome]

I'd be fine with that.  We all gotta go.  Let nature recover with the monkeys in charge.