This entire HN discussion is insane. Every comment that is even slightly skeptical of mass-injecting the global population with a substance that we do not fully understand is being down-voted.
What would you expect from a crowd of people who routinely test their code in production "because run fast, break things, yada yada". :D
"I've run my unit test 10 times and it always passes! Rock-solid. Deploy to prod! Why do you want to waste our time executing it on staging env?! What are you, some kind of a unit-test denier?! There's a production issue affecting customers, there's no time for that. Anything goes wrong, we're just restore the prod DB from the last good backup."
The way I see it... if the vaccine creates some long lasting complications in 0.1% of people who took it, than it is not going to be much better than the disease itself, given that it shifts the problems from the older population to the younger one. This wouldn't be a problem if the vaccine was rolled out at a normal pace with plenty of controls to figure out any issues and put breaks on it if any unexpected problems were detected.
But it looks like the crowd is already set on mass delivering it ASAP, starting with the kids. So, oh well... YOLO.
BTW. Funny how "big oil" and "big tabaco" "evil, greedy, corrupting science", but "big pharma" ... "real scientists! our noble saviors that can do no wrong, and make no mistakes motivated by financial gain".
It's because the alternative is millions of deaths in the US alone. It's a risk/benefit analysis. Yes, there is some risk to a new vaccine. That is an unknown. But there is a known risk to not widely distributing a vaccine, which is millions of deaths. Vaccines have been studied for a long time, their mechanisms are fairly well understood, and they have been going through full safety trials, even if somewhat accelerated. So those are your options on the table: guaranteed millions of deaths, or possibly some unknown long term implications from a vaccine, but unlikely given the understanding and safety trials.
Ask any reputable doctor, virologist, or epidemiologist: they all are backing the vaccine. Discussion is fine, but you have to provide some thoughtful justification behind your worry, and make a case for your alternative plan. Otherwise you're just spreading fear and doubt, which may impact vaccine uptake, and directly cause more deaths.
Well, that's the third option of "lockdown" and "hospitals overwhelmed by dying people". Both of which are also bad.
And almost all of us have had our vaccinations for the common diseases, in childhood or as adults for travel purposes.
And many of us are tired: tired of lockdown, tired of unsubstantiated nonsense on social media, tired of anti-vaxers, and tired of worrying whether someone we know will suffer severe consequences from this disease (I know many people in the "vulnerable" category, and a couple who've already experienced severe symptoms despite being young).
> And many of us are tired: tired of lockdown, tired of unsubstantiated nonsense on social media, tired of anti-vaxers, and tired of worrying whether someone we know will suffer severe consequences from this disease (I know many people in the "vulnerable" category, and a couple who've already experienced severe symptoms despite being young).
So you’re projecting your wishes onto others ?
The trials of this vaccine aren’t even over, we don’t know if it stops the spread or for how long it’s effects last.
When it comes to medicine, science and civil rights it can’t be about emotions.
I’m likely to end up taking a vaccine, but I don’t want to be forced to against my will because others want me too. I also think it’s important the results of the trial are properly assessed when completed.
This whole, “just f*^king take the vaccine already” attitude being forced down our throats is the idiotic, reactionary view to me.
There's a cost-benefit analysis to be made here, and with 240,000 deaths in the US over the course of about eight months, there's pretty widespread agreement among experts where the rational answer lies.
Do I think the vaccine is risky? Sure. Do I think it has anywhere close to the risk level of COVID-19 with an unvaccinated population? No.
Maybe other countries can rationally hold off on it, but the US cannot. We've messed up our response so awfully that the risk of mass-vaccination is almost negligible compared to what we're experiencing without.
You’re making out like me taking this vaccine (not even finished with trials) is the be all and end all. We don’t even know if this vaccine stops the spread to others or just mitigates symptoms. If you think the risks outweigh the rewards, that’s a personal decision you’re making, you don’t make it for me.
We know there are other ways to slow the spread of the virus (Australia), the problem in the USA isn’t the rest of the worlds problem.
