The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll

How's your immunity looking? Had covid - vote twice - vax status and then again for infection status

  • Vaxxed but no booster

  • Boostered

  • Still waiting in queue for first vaccine dose

  • Won't get vaxxed (unless I have to for travel/work etc)

  • Past infection with covid + I've been vaccinated

  • Past infection with covid - I've not been vaccinated


Results are only viewable after voting.

Pogue Mahone

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Would you do something that carries a 1 in 5 risk to avoid something that carries a 1 in 50 risk? Of course not.

For those at greater risk vaccination is worth it now. Old people, HCWs etc. For those at lower risk the numbers today cannot yet fully support it, but it doesn't matter because those people won't be getting it. By the time they are in line for it, millions of doses will have been safely administered and the risk profile will have changed.




That's my point. The proven vaccine safety will increase as more doses are given.

I'll happily take the vaccine when it gets to my turn, by which time 1/43k will be more like 1/43million.
Yeah, that’s fair enough. The way this is being rolled out will ensure that the risk vs benefit will be optimised for everyone.
 

11101

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Nobody in a position of expertise that has looked at the data on the vaccine would describe it as a 0.02% risk. It's an incredibly careless assessment. <0.02% is completely different.
That's actually what i have been saying all along. <1 in 43k.
 

Brwned

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That's actually what i have been saying all along. <1 in 43k.
Yeah other than in that post you quoted, where it was straight up 0.02% rather than <0.02%, and in your risk calculation where you said it was 40x riskier right now. The worst case scenario is it's 40x riskier but that isn't a good baseline assumption to make the comparison. For people not looking into the numbers and just reading that one comparison, they could be very easily misled, and I'm not sure why it was framed that way when you framed it completely differently before and after.
 

Raees

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Nothing against taking vaccine in principle but would probably avoid doing so until more time has passed... just so that if there are any issues, they can be ironed out. Totally understand why it has been released so quickly but it should not be taken as gospel that it is very safe.
 

redshaw

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Yep - that isn't right. Australia is 3%, UK and Sweden north of 4%.
Is that for an age group?

UK has about 60k deaths, ~8-10% have had the virus from antibody tests so around 1%. Sweden antibody tests show 14% so about 0.5%. Spain was a bit higher then the typical 1% we find in the summer, they had 5% of the pop with antibodies and around 40-44k excess deaths so 1.5-1.7%
 

Wibble

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We don't know if there are long-term effects yet. If we can accept that covid caused unexpected long-term effects that we still don't understand, then surely we can accept there is the possibility a vaccine using the same virus with a new technology could have have unexpected long-term effects too?

Telling people there is essentially no risk
Most serious adverse side effects reveal themselves within 2 months. As Jo said earlier the longer term monitoring including post phase 3 assessment will not tend to reveal side effects that display longer than 2 months after a vaccine is given but side effects that happen soon after a vaccine is given but are so rare that only general use will reveal them with in effect massive sample sizes. This is what we do.with all vaccines.

One of the last times we detected something like this was with a flu vaccine where there was found to be a very slightly elevated incidence of GBS compared to unvaccinated people. However. It was so rare that the minuiscule risk paled in comparison to the number of cases of GBS that would have been triggered by actual flu infections.

In this case the need for immediate mass vaccination is so huge that the risk of rare side effects we discover in due course compared to the consequences of not vaccinating aren't even close. So it isn't that the risk is zero but that the alternative is far riskier.

A bit like never wearing a seatbelt in case it traps you in a burning car.
 

Wibble

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Is that for an age group?

UK has about 60k deaths, ~8-10% have had the virus from antibody tests so around 1%. Sweden antibody tests show 14% so about 0.5%. Spain was a bit higher then the typical 1% we find in the summer, they had 5% of the pop with antibodies and around 40-44k excess deaths so 1.5-1.7%
That is the overall rate I believe. Excess deaths will likely be a bit higher in badly hit countries like the UK and less in places like Australia where flu deaths have reduced by more than covid deaths.
 

Tarrou

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No it's not. It's <1 in 43,500.
You are using <1 in 43,500 as if it's interchangeable with 1 in 43,500 in your summation of your risks. In a situation where the current deaths are actually 0 in 43,500.

If you want to use <1 in 43,500 that is fine, but it doesn't show the risk is higher or lower.
 

Kasper

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No issue taking it once its out right away. Everything I`ve heard so far from specialists points to it being not associated with a significant risk whatsoever, it`s just like @Wibble pointed out, we humans are shite at evaluating risks. I`ll probably more likely do die from a falling brick stepping onto the street than from a covid vaccine going mad.
I wonder if there`s a detailed video or article about how scepticism of vaccines became so big? I feel its a side effect/victim of legitimate criticism directed at capitalism and health through big pharma.

Having said that, I`m under 30, healthy with no underlying conditions so I`ll be as far back at the queue as it gets. They`ll probably vaccinate breeding animals first given that we do everything to protect our meat eating habits.
 

SiRed

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If it means getting back to normal, ill take the vaccine yesterday!

Anyone else find it odd that a few days after Trump got dumped, realistic talk of a vaccine surfaces with more encouraging news that anyone could expect before 2021? This after Trump set trade barriers on China a few months before Covid became a thing?

Im not suggesting anything dodgy has gone on but thats some coincidence!
 

prateik

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Belgium has had 1139 deaths/million... which is 0.1139% of the population.. The cases havent stopped.. there is nothing to suggest they have reached a level required for herd immunity, let alone having 100% of their population infected..
Peru is at 0.1% as well. Spain is at 0.085%
A lot of countries including the US and UK have lost around 0.075% of the population.. and no one believes they have a over 15-20% of their population infected.. at most.

So.. anyone saying the mortality rate is about 0.1% is quite clearly wrong.
 

Cloud7

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I wonder if there`s a detailed video or article about how scepticism of vaccines became so big? I feel its a side effect/victim of legitimate criticism directed at capitalism and health through big pharma.
It started with a botched study, which has now been completely discredited, that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism. Because conspiracy theorists and general idiots have formed such a large part of our society, they ran with that and applied it to all vaccines ever since, and it's evolved into the massive anti vaxx movement that's having serious consequences all over the world.
 

Cloud7

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If it means getting back to normal, ill take the vaccine yesterday!

Anyone else find it odd that a few days after Trump got dumped, realistic talk of a vaccine surfaces with more encouraging news that anyone could expect before 2021? This after Trump set trade barriers on China a few months before Covid became a thing?

Im not suggesting anything dodgy has gone on but thats some coincidence!
Every now and then good things happen in life. Not often, but sometimes things line up such that the fascist gets dethroned and the potential vaccine for the pandemic appear in the same week ;)
 

Wibble

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Would you do something that carries a 1 in 5 risk to avoid something that carries a 1 in 50 risk? Of course not.
Except you have the risk profile the wrong way round.

The chances are that any side effects missed in phase 3 trials (if any) were done so because they are very rare indeed which is why vaccines failing post phase 3 is so rare. In this case the consequences of not mass vaccinating are so huge the risk profile is even better than when a rare side effect is revealed with something like a flu vaccine.

Nobody has had any issues but as it's only been tested on 43,500 you can't say that it's any safer than that.
Which is perfectly normal for a vaccine. Since the chances of a serious adverse effect or death from covid are far higher than not taking the vaccine, even if you assume that the vaccine will kill the 43 501st person to take it, taking it at the first opportunity more than makes sense. As this also protects those who can't take the vaccine and groups like the elderly where vaccines work less well I consider it my civic duty to take it as soon as offered.
 

spontaneus1

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Where did you get that % from? I went to the WHO site and the mortality rate for that age group was around 0.1%. Sometimes higher.

In fact, here’s Italian data showing mortality between 0.1% and 1.4% for 30 to 60 year olds.
Key points here are otherwise healthy and under 40 vs 30 to 60 are very different demographics.
 

Smores

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There’s more to it than just individual risk though. I mean, we all (well, if we’re sensible, reasonable people anyway) expose our kids to a risk when we vaccinate them. Even vaccines that have been round for decades have real, quantifiable risks of causing bad outcomes. And these vaccines include some diseases that they’re incredibly unlikely to ever get exposed to. Yet we accept this risk because we know it’s the price we pay as a society for keeping the transmission rates of these nasty illnesses as low as they are.
That's an interesting point actually as i hadn't considered kids till now. From a highly scientific quick Google it seems the vaccines in the short to medium term won't be used for the vaccination of children.

That should hopefully dampen a lot of the vaccination hysteria as people are generally more willing to submit themselves to more risk than they would their kids.

I do wonder what that will mean for it's effectiveness though. I like to think anti-vaxxers will suddenly become terrified of all children.
 

Brwned

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Most serious adverse side effects reveal themselves within 2 months. As Jo said earlier the longer term monitoring including post phase 3 assessment will not tend to reveal side effects that display longer than 2 months after a vaccine is given but side effects that happen soon after a vaccine is given but are so rare that only general use will reveal them with in effect massive sample sizes. This is what we do.with all vaccines.

One of the last times we detected something like this was with a flu vaccine where there was found to be a very slightly elevated incidence of GBS compared to unvaccinated people. However. It was so rare that the minuiscule risk paled in comparison to the number of cases of GBS that would have been triggered by actual flu infections.

In this case the need for immediate mass vaccination is so huge that the risk of rare side effects we discover in due course compared to the consequences of not vaccinating aren't even close. So it isn't that the risk is zero but that the alternative is far riskier.

A bit like never wearing a seatbelt in case it traps you in a burning car.
Comparing this vaccine to previous vaccines has a couple of flaws, though. This is the first time we're using mRNA, so it allows for the possibility that it will have effects that other methods haven't. It's also been fast-tracked through the process, in a way that has been consistently identified as "unprecedented". Usually after phase 3 trials you would be able to tick both key boxes: the exceptionally rare effects on particular individuals or groups have been identified through the large sample size, and the long-term effects have been identified through the slow process. The way this process has been managed has introduced new risks. We hope they are almost non-existent but you cannot say that they are, because we haven't done it before. There are some good reasons why it was done that way before.

I believe Rotarix is the last notable vaccine to be created and phase 1 trials started in 2006 (?) and phase 3 trials finished in 2017. Allowing enough time to identify long-term effects is not something they have had to account for before, it just comes naturally. It's not something they've been able to account for this time. Unless you're suggesting there are 0 vaccines that manifested adverse effects that weren't apparent in the first year of trials, then your analogy doesn't work. You're ascribing a risk that is greater than 0 but less than 1, and it's a risk that might well be low, but it's not something you can say with certainty from reading the publications so far.
 

sammsky1

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Assuming they all work, what is UK going to do with all the excess vaccines?!

 
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Edgar Allan Pillow

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Belgium has had 1139 deaths/million... which is 0.1139% of the population.. The cases havent stopped.. there is nothing to suggest they have reached a level required for herd immunity, let alone having 100% of their population infected..
Peru is at 0.1% as well. Spain is at 0.085%
A lot of countries including the US and UK have lost around 0.075% of the population.. and no one believes they have a over 15-20% of their population infected.. at most.

So.. anyone saying the mortality rate is about 0.1% is quite clearly wrong.
How is mortality rate calculated...Deaths by cases or deaths by overall population? I'd have assumed it's death/cases. US has 237k deaths over 9.9 cases. That puts this to around 2+%
 

prateik

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How is mortality rate calculated...Deaths by cases or deaths by overall population? I'd have assumed it's death/cases. US has 237k deaths over 9.9 cases. That puts this to around 2+%
It is death by cases.. But there are many cases that go undetected, so just looking at confirmed cases will inflate the real mortality rate by a bit..

My point was, even if the entire population was infected, the deaths would mean the mortality would be greater than 0.1% in Belgium.
The entire population is quite clearly not infected.. and we have a huge sample side of an entire country.. People still suggesting the mortality is around 0.1% are being silly.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I mean we’d likely need two per year for each person, so keep them on ice most likely. Or sell them?
Hopefully not. Only some of those vaccines will need two doses and it’s possible that we might not ever need a booster. Especially if the virus becomes endemic. That’s one of the reasons we haven’t rolled out a chickenpox vaccination program. Having the virus continually in circulation amongst young kids can act as an booster for adults, which can help keep their immunity up until old age.
 

11101

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Except you have the risk profile the wrong way round.
How so? For a healthy young person, the risk of catching the virus and dying from it whilst going about their daily business is less than what has been shown from the vaccine so far. Now that won't be the case forever, hopefully even by Christmas, but right now it is.
 

sglowrider

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I don't think the mRNA vaccines will be targeted to places where facilities aren't sufficient. I can't remember exactly but not keeping them at the approved very low temperature (-20c for one and -70c for the other mRNA vaccine I think) they only had a life of 1 or 2 days at fridge tempertures if memory serves. There was also talk of them being distributed in insulated containers with dry ice which could work in areas where the refrigeration technology wasn't adequate.
I just heard it on the radio that Hancock said that the vaccine cannot be taken in & out of the -70degrees environment more than 4 times including from the place of manufacture. :nervous:
 

Pogue Mahone

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I just heard it on the radio that Hancock said that the vaccine cannot be taken in & out of the -70degrees environment more than 4 times including from the place of manufacture. :nervous:
That’s standard for all cold chain medicines. It’s called cold chain because every link en route from factory to patient has to be reliable. So there’s a whole raft of checks and measures to ensure compliance. It’s unusual to have a cold chain medicine that needs to be this cold but the basic principles are the same.
 

Tibs

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What temp will it be when they inject you with it? Don't want your arm to freeze
 

sglowrider

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That’s standard for all cold chain medicines. It’s called cold chain because every link en route from factory to patient has to be reliable. So there’s a whole raft of checks and measures to ensure compliance. It’s unusual to have a cold chain medicine that needs to be this cold but the basic principles are the same.
Maybe its easier to bring Mohammed to the mountain instead.
 

spontaneus1

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I just heard it on the radio that Hancock said that the vaccine cannot be taken in & out of the -70degrees environment more than 4 times including from the place of manufacture. :nervous:
Keeping things cool from manufacture to storage is easy enough. already happens all the time for other medication. Obviously -70c is colder than most but is doable with the will to make it work. Which obviously isn't in short supply right now.

Much more interesting is this would be the first MRNA vaccine ever approved which opens up an entire new world of medical advances if it works as intended.
 

McGrathsipan

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It probably starts to dwindle before then. Transmission will stop completely if/when a certain % of the population of your country have either been infected or vaccinated. We don’t know yet how high that % needs to be. It could be >80%. But it will spread less rapidly as more and more people get immune.
My country is Blanchardstown and it would appear there are more anti vaxxers than intelligent people there these days!
 

Giggsyking

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So a few here would want to wait and risk infecting other people or are they planning to stay home for 5 years?
 

RK

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I think it's a psychological issue about control.

We've become familiar with the risks of the virus. Most of us haven't had it yet and believe that we can keep doing the right things to prevent us from becoming infected. We are in control over whether we get the virus, even if we can't control it once infected. Likewise, we can't control what happens once the vaccine is inside us.

We are subconsciously weighing this up irrationally - thinking why take the guaranteed risk (chosen to take it) of vaccine side-effects over the possible risk (may not catch it) of covid-19 'side-effects'. We decide to stay 'in control' by choosing not to take the vaccine while manually defending ourselves from infection. Taking the vaccine takes away our agency.

I'd take it (when appropriate). But everyone thinks differently and I hope governments seek expert* advice on their messaging.

*Not Dom fecking Cummings.
 

Wibble

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Comparing this vaccine to previous vaccines has a couple of flaws, though. This is the first time we're using mRNA, so it allows for the possibility that it will have effects that other methods haven't. It's also been fast-tracked through the process, in a way that has been consistently identified as "unprecedented". Usually after phase 3 trials you would be able to tick both key boxes: the exceptionally rare effects on particular individuals or groups have been identified through the large sample size, and the long-term effects have been identified through the slow process. The way this process has been managed has introduced new risks. We hope they are almost non-existent but you cannot say that they are, because we haven't done it before. There are some good reasons why it was done that way before.

I believe Rotarix is the last notable vaccine to be created and phase 1 trials started in 2006 (?) and phase 3 trials finished in 2017. Allowing enough time to identify long-term effects is not something they have had to account for before, it just comes naturally. It's not something they've been able to account for this time. Unless you're suggesting there are 0 vaccines that manifested adverse effects that weren't apparent in the first year of trials, then your analogy doesn't work. You're ascribing a risk that is greater than 0 but less than 1, and it's a risk that might well be low, but it's not something you can say with certainty from reading the publications so far.
You can be almost certain that the risk of getting an unidentified long term serious side effect is much less than the risk of getting a comprably bad or worse serious side effect of catch covid.
 

Wibble

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How so? For a healthy young person, the risk of catching the virus and dying from it whilst going about their daily business is less than what has been shown from the vaccine so far. Now that won't be the case forever, hopefully even by Christmas, but right now it is.
So far the risk of a serious known side effect of a vaccine is zero. Even if it were 1 in 43000 that compares to 1 in 5 people who catch covid who have serious symptoms that require medical intervention and up to 15% need ICU treatment of some sort and 5% require ventilation. The vast majority of these 15-20% then suffer serious long term, possibly permanent, symptoms. So not taking the vaccine is at least 8600 times riskier than not taking it.

Even if you decide you only want to consider young people the 50-85 age groups are only 4 to 13% more likely to be hospitalised, so even if that is an average of 10% then young people are still more than 800 times more at risk of a serious health outcome from catching covid than taking the virus.

If a very rare serious side effect is revealed by post approval monitoring that is highly unlikely to significantly move the huge gap in comparative risk.
 
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Wibble

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I just heard it on the radio that Hancock said that the vaccine cannot be taken in & out of the -70degrees environment more than 4 times including from the place of manufacture. :nervous:
That sound right. I'd assume the aim was to only take it out once - long enough for it to warm up enough to be administered. I think vaccines like the Oxford one will be the preferred solution in many countries due to the challenges of keeping mRNA vaccines cool.
 

Ayush_reddevil

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A lot of HCW's I work with are now hesitant about taking it themselves . I wonder if they will stick to this view once the vaccine is actually out
 

Dante

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I definitely won't be rushing to take the vaccine any time soon.

I live alone, I have no elderly family, and I work from home. I'm also relatively young, fit and healthy. The way I see it, my chances of infecting anybody else are very low. As are my chances of getting infected in the first place. And also my chances of requiring treatment even if I did.

I'm happy enough to isolate for the foreseeable future. I've quite enjoyed life since March. My social life used to revolve around going to busy bars and clubs at the weekend. But seeing as that won't be possible again for ages, the next best thing is sitting at home bingewatching TV - and I'm okay with that.

What I'm not okay with is my sense of unease over how rushed this vaccine will be. There's been an arms race to be first to market, and I just don't trust Big Pharma not to cut corners in that situation. When you consider that it usually take 5+ years for a vaccine like this to be approved and distributed, the turnaround we're seeing now has me worried about the worst case scenario.

I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies, but there must be well-trodden historical reasons for why the timeline on vaccinations usually takes sp much longer. My mind keeps thinking back to cases like Thalidomide.

Of course, if I were medically vulnerable or a frontline worker, the risk-benefit calculation would be different. But for me, I'm firmly in the 'not yet' camp.
 

Xeno

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What would happen if the COVID death rate was double (like smallpox). What if it was like the plague, or Ebola? How would the speed to vaccine differ (I know Ebola is a virus) How would the global response differ? Just a hypothetical.
 

sglowrider

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That sound right. I'd assume the aim was to only take it out once - long enough for it to warm up enough to be administered. I think vaccines like the Oxford one will be the preferred solution in many countries due to the challenges of keeping mRNA vaccines cool.
Cheers!