 with the vacc a year or 2 in the future?"
Personally I think if "my vaccine protects me" and vulnerable people have had an opportunity then we outta let those be who don't want it.
I want to start with I agree with a lot of your reasons being why people havent and I dont exactly blame them. However blame vs agree with are two different things.
This is an example of humans just being terrible at doing risk calculations. Sure nothings guarenteed in life but given the data we do have and what we know about how vaccines work we know with pretty good certainty that the vaccines drastically worth it over risking the virus.
The odds are insanely in favor of getting a vaccine over risking covid even if youve already had it or are young. Admittedly, if you fall in those categories your risks very low regardless but ones a lot lower than the other.
Yes we cant know everything but doesnt mean we shouldnt base our decisions on what we do know, humans are bad at that mental math though. We love biasing towards things we feel like we know over things we feel like we dont even if the science is that the unkown risk chances are crazy low.
However the science of all this is complicated and expecting the avg person to understand it all to do said math properly is unreasonable. Hell im mostly trusting the opinions of doctors myself as you need degrees upon degrees to understand all this properly.
I think this is ultimately where well have to be but i will point out it ignores the kinda big picture point of vaccines. Yah its great that these vaccines work really well at protecting the individual but thats almost never the point of vaccines. the point is to get so many people vaccinated that the virus has a really really hard time propagating through a population (which is why the FDA would have approved any vaccine capable of just 50% effectiveness, its a miracle we got the 90-95% we did). That requires abandoning this mindset of the individual and looking at it as a collective problem/solution which means we absolutely should try and convince anyone and everyone to get it. People shouldnt be harrassed sure but we shouldnt just give up and stop trying.
I like the content in your comment and understand the want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. I do have a question though, if you’re climbing naked, are you still wearing your TC Pros?
Thanks for being willing to discuss with me in a productive way!
I certainly agree with you the vast amount of people are awful at probability and risk/reward calculations. I'd like to hope I'm not one of them, as my job depends on it... just saying lol.
What is my age groups IFR? By how much does healthy/no-preexisting conditions reduce that IFR? What are the odds I contract Covid given my social activity level (or whatever you want to call it) in the area I live, in say the next year? Curveballs: What is the risk of long-Covid negative effects and the positive aspects of 'getting life back to normal'?
But let's for example, take the population that are at the lowest risk; a healthy 10-year old. (I know the vacc isn't yet approved but it's being tested currently). 10-year olds have a Covid death risk in the ballpark of 1 in 50-100k. But what about healthy 10 year olds!? It may be such that the only ones that have any risk of death are ones with certain pre existing conditions. Now multiply that by their odds of getting COVID/and or again. It's just insanely low.
So then you're trying to handicap the odds of an unforeseen negative vaccine outcome at some point in the future... ADE, a scenario where a virulent strain is rampant and people need a 3rd/4th/5th dose but those extra doses have bad outcomes often, maybe certain people who took the vacc develop autoimmune disorder's at a 50% higher propensity. Sorta making those last 2 up as examples, not claiming that they are possible. Maybe there's literally nothing bad that could happen, or maybe it's 1/500 simulations we have a scenario where there's bad outcomes and that only become knowable in 2 years (i.e when antibody titers drop to certain levels).
When your IFR is 25% it's an easy choice, hell when its.1% it's an easy choice. But there's a point that exists where imo it's not easy.
I mean ultimately when chances are low both ways, it gets hard to assign any meaningful value to unknown risks. Which is again why I dont blame people for being hesitant, however im not sure the medical community as a whole would agree with the logic bc ultimately no matter how you cut it theres a huge collective benefit to everyone getting vaccinated.
I think the problem boils down to like your examples as you point out are just made up. Right now atleast in the literature ive read no one expects any widescale issues with these vaccines. Edge cases maybe but where suddenly it gets to a point of outweigh the risk of covid almost def not. Assigning that a true probability though is near impossible.
There is always an unknown of well something could show up and when you feel like your personal risk of covid is low I agree it can be hard to commit to taking that unknown risk even if its low too.
It just ignores a few things like we have unknowns with covid too. We tend to look at covid as live or die and then the vaccines as all these otehr potential problems. People forget that we dont know what longer term effects having had covid could have even if maybe at the time it didnt bother the person much. Id argue that alone kinda cancels out the unknown of the vaccine too.
The bigger thing is (and this is something humans are also bad at) given the risks are low either way to the individual at a micro scale, id argue the young and healthy should step back and think about the macro scale. Getting vaccinated makes you one less person this virus can reliably multiply in, lowering the odds of mutations ever so slightly. Taken in bulk, vaccinating all young healthy people would have an overall fantastic impact in reducing future risk with this virus. Gotta get out of the just thinking as the individual mindset. However I cant blame people for viewing it that way, its kinda our nature after all.
Im guilty of in the past not getting the flu vaccine thinking well it doesnt always work anyway and im healthy. Thats not the point though, the point is lowering the collective odds by having the whole population be less likely to spread it. For that reason ill be getting it every year from now on.
Yes you make a lot of good points.
It just ignores a few things like we have unknowns with covid too. People forget that we dont know what longer term effects having had covid could have even if maybe at the time it didnt bother the person much. Id argue that alone kinda cancels out the unknown of the vaccine too.
This was ultimately what pushed me over the edge to getting the vacc. And the thought of long lasting symptoms such as losing smell forever, or hardly being able to exercise.
Right and ultimately im not here to shame people for being hesitant. I get it and plus shaming them isnt a good way to change peoples mind anyway.
All I can do is if people around me who I know well enough ask or it comes up ill explain why I think its worth doing. Thats gonna be more effective than anything else.
Im also aware we arent going to convince everyone anyway and at some point we will just have to decide people have made their choices and it is what it is. Might not be the optimal strategy but itll likely be the one were stuck with.
If you want to knock on doors and talk to people join the Jehovah Witness people. I love talking to them.
Point taken. I no longer want to knock on people's doors to encourage them to get vaccinated.
I was just having a moment of frustration and a bad idea around midnight."I don't want to come home and find him dead or have him hurt someone else, he's too good of a child," said Donald Utley, father of bullying victim.
That fear made the father and mother of a Hannibal boy decide to pull him out of school Wednesday, October 20th.
They say their son has endured almost seven years of bullying from his classmates.
Now the parents hope they can help other families in similar situations.
KHQA's Jarod Wells shows you their story and how they plan to help others.
Angela Utley said, "My son has been bullied since starting in this school district, which was in first grade. It's been an ongoing thing, school bus, in school."
Donald Utley said, "He goes to the bathroom in between class and he gets bullied in there because there's no cameras. He goes in the hallways, they trip him, kick him, push him down, knock his books out of his hands."
Donald and Angela Utley say their son has been both verbally and physically bullied.
Donald Utley said, "He's intelligent, really smart, articulate, he speaks well and people find that as a weakness, I guess, being sensitive. And they'll pick on him and poke at him until he cries."
Angela Utley said, "You tell the school about it and, yeah, they do what they're supposed to, to a point, but it doesn't do any good."
Donald Utley said, "They're pulling the bullies in, but it's not doing any good because when they pull the bully in,