The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll

[AngeloHenriquez]

What I don't understand is that a vaccine typically takes more than 10 years to create, yet we have smashed it out in 6 months with such high accuracy? It seems odd, the reason they test for so long is to study long term affects and understand the affects better. That leads me to believe they are desperate to get it out to the public but why? It kills roughly 0.1% of people which is far less than many diseases we have no cures for. We take radical actions to avoid the spread of this disease with a death rate far lower than any previous pandemic. What am I missing? The pieces aren't adding up.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

What I don't understand is that a vaccine typically takes more than 10 years to create, yet we have smashed it out in 6 months with such high accuracy? It seems odd, the reason they test for so long is to study long term affects and understand the affects better. That leads me to believe they are desperate to get it out to the public but why? It kills roughly 0.1% of people which is far less than many diseases we have no cures for. We take radical actions to avoid the spread of this disease with a death rate far lower than any previous pandemic. What am I missing? The pieces aren't adding up.

The bit in bold is where you’re going wrong.

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

The bit in bold is where you’re going wrong.

Ok, but the death rate is still around 0.1% and less if you are below 70, why is it seen as almost mandatory to take this if it has such low rate effects?

 

[Drawfull]

For anyone who is keen, be prepared to wait in line. As it stands, the queue looks like this:

I'd probably fall in moderate risk under 65, but don't know really.

But I'd prefer the sooner the better, so assuming it's available privately, that's my plan. I don't do a great deal, but I am sick of not being able to do it.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

It will only go to the vulnerable initially anyway. The UK only has 10 million ready to be delivered this winter which will only cover 5m people because it's two doses per person. The other 40m are on back order.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Ok, but the death rate is still around 0.1% and less if you are below 70, why is it seen as almost mandatory to take this if it has such low rate effects?

The death rate increases as you get older. It hits 1% at about 60 years old and gets higher and higher from there. If you do the maths on how many people would die if this virus swept through the whole population completely unchecked you’ll answer your own question.

 

[11101]

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.

That's the data for everybody who is known to have caught the virus. Not everybody does catch it though, and avoidance is a perfectly reasonable preventative measure.

To calculate the risk of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, you have to calculate across the entire population who might be exposed to either. Of an under 40s population of ~25 million, all of them will be given the vaccine. Unvaccinated all of them could catch the virus and therefore must be included in the calculation, but not all of them will catch it. So far only 14 healthy under 40s have died. If 1 in 1.8 million are dying from it unvaccinated, you have to show the vaccine is safer than 1 in 43,500.

If you change your focus to over 75s, where 1 in every 230 has died from it, even a 1 in 1000 vaccine looks appealing.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That's the data for everybody who is known to have caught the virus. Not everybody does catch it though, and avoidance is a perfectly reasonable preventative measure.

To calculate the risk of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, you have to calculate across the entire population who might be exposed to either. Of an under 40s population of ~25 million, all of them will be given the vaccine. Unvaccinated all of them could catch the virus and therefore must be included in the calculation, but not all of them will catch it. So far only 14 healthy under 40s have died. If 1 in 1.8 million are dying from it unvaccinated, you have to show the vaccine is safer than 1 in 43,500.

If you change your focus to over 75s, where 1 in every 230 has died from it, even a 1 in 1000 vaccine looks appealing.

Where are you getting those stats from? You say 14 under 40s have died in Italy at a rate of 1 in 1.8 million. That would mean over 25 million under 40 year olds would have to have been infected to account for those 14 deaths.

John Hopkins gives a total case number for Italy of less than one million. Something isn’t adding up!

 

[Tony Babangida]

What I don't understand is that a vaccine typically takes more than 10 years to create, yet we have smashed it out in 6 months with such high accuracy? It seems odd, the reason they test for so long is to study long term affects and understand the affects better. That leads me to believe they are desperate to get it out to the public but why? It kills roughly 0.1% of people which is far less than many diseases we have no cures for. We take radical actions to avoid the spread of this disease with a death rate far lower than any previous pandemic. What am I missing? The pieces aren't adding up.

If you want to know how the vaccine development was sped up then read this Twitter thread:

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

The short answer is that we didn’t start from scratch as we had some info that was useful from studying other coronaviruses. Then the trials process was massively accelerated by overlapping all the phases, which could be done because of massive public-private investment in lots of different vaccine candidates that meant companies developing them were at less/no risk if they fail.

 

[2mufc0]

I will take it eventually, would rather wait though and be last in line so any long term side effects (if any) are identified.

 

[sglowrider]

I wonder what the deterioration in efficacy is once the storage temperature drops? Minus 80 degrees can't be that easy to achieve consistently -- whether in the 1st world esp in rural areas never mind the 3rd world.

 

[11101]

Where are you getting those stats from? You say 14 under 40s have died in Italy at a rate of 1 in 1.8 million. That would mean over 25 million under 40 year olds would have to have been infected to account for those 14 deaths.

John Hopkins gives a total case number for Italy of less than one million. Something isn’t adding up!

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

edit:
Some rough probability calculations...considering ~320k under 40s have caught the virus in Italy and 14 have died with no underlying conditions.

Vaccine
Exposure = 1
Dying = 0.00002
Total = 0.002% / we know from the news its <1 in 43,500

Virus
Exposure = 0.0128
Dying = 0.0004
Total = 0.000056% / 1 in 1.8 million

 

[Pexbo]

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

That’s a really odd way of using statistics. It’s like assessing the risk of flying in a helicopter by also counting the millionaires who could afford their own helicopter.

 

[jojojo]

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

I understand where you're coming from with this, but in order to maintain your "low risk" status, you're currently living with massive restrictions. Freedom to travel and visit family are limited. Freedom to mix normally with friends and potential friends, go to the cinema or to a football match have been curtailed.

It might be that when the over 60s have been vaccinated those freedoms can return, even if the virus is still out there infecting younger people in large numbers. But that also means your personal risk exposure will change, so the calculations will change as well.

And I'm ignoring there the issue for those who can't take the vaccine, or for whom the vaccine is ineffective. They will rely on other people taking it and lower community transmission to get any semblance of normal life back. Mind you, that element of the story could evaporate if we discover that vaccinated people can still catch/transmit the disease in a significant way, albeit they themselves are asymptomat or have only mild symptoms.

 

[Tarrou]

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

then statistically the vaccine is better because its 0 in 43,500

 

[Sarni]

Death rate is most certainly not 0.1%. That would mean that with a death toll of 244k and population of 328 million US should be approaching herd immunity.

 

[Wibble]

The death rate increases as you get older. It hits 1% at about 60 years old and gets higher and higher from there. If you do the maths on how many people would die if this virus swept through the whole population completely unchecked you’ll answer your own question.

Not to mention that deaths aren't the only issue as a far far higher number get very bad long term, potentially permanent, symptoms that would pile additional load on our medical services. Then the death rate will skyrocket when we are beyond capacity. Does anyone really think that BoJo et al. would be doing what they are if it was so insignificant?

 

[Brwned]

Death rate is most certainly not 0.1%. That would mean that with a death toll of 244k and population of 328 million US should be approaching herd immunity.

It wouldn't because that doesn't take into account the age profile.

More people are getting infected now but fewer people are dying because the age profile has a significant impact on the overall death rate, to the point where the overall death rate hides more than it illuminates.

Here's the stats from the CDC. 2,156 people under the age of 35 have died, from a population of 149m. That's 0.0014%.

But people are talking about different sets of figures here. One is the % of reported cases that lead to death, and one is the % of people in that total age group that have died. We know the former will change as infections spread, but if we think 10% of people have been infected already, then it would still be 0.01% for those under 35 after all of them got infected. We also expect the latter to change as we get better data, but I think the CDC has it lower than 0.01% for that age group last time I checked.

But deaths are not a good measure of the impact of the virus or the vaccination. Vaccination anxiety isn't driven by people worried about sudden death but about long-term complications. Corona should be judged on the same measure. There's a lot of unknowns about both.

 

[Wibble]

Death rate is most certainly not 0.1%. That would mean that with a death toll of 244k and population of 328 million US should be approaching herd immunity.

Yep - that isn't right. Australia is 3%, UK and Sweden north of 4%.

If we just let the virus run medical facilities would become overrun and 3-4% death rate would then optimistic at best I'd say.

 

[Sarni]

It wouldn't because that doesn't take into account the age profile.

More people are getting infected now but fewer people are dying because the age profile has a significant impact on the overall death rate, to the point where the overall death rate hides more than it illuminates.

Here's the stats from the CDC. 2,156 people under the age of 35 have died, from a population of 149m. That's 0.0014%.

But people are talking about different sets of figures here. One is the % of reported cases that lead to death, and one is the % of people in that total age group that have died. We know the former will change as infections spread, but if we think 10% of people have been infected already, then it would still be 0.01% for those under 35 after all of them got infected.

But deaths are not a good measure of the impact of the virus or the vaccination. Vaccination anxiety isn't driven by people worried about sudden death but about long-term complications. Corona should be judged on the same measure.

Well I am probably going to believe death rate is low among young adults but the overall death rate cannot be 0.1%, it's going to be mulitple times higher in older people and they make up significant part of the population too.

 

[McGrathsipan]

Is it fair to say that once 50% of people have immunity the natural transmission will start to dwindle?
Immunity by vaccine or herd - whatever.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I understand where you're coming from with this, but in order to maintain your "low risk" status, you're currently living with massive restrictions. Freedom to travel and visit family are limited. Freedom to mix normally with friends and potential friends, go to the cinema or to a football match have been curtailed.

It might be that when the over 60s have been vaccinated those freedoms can return, even if the virus is still out there infecting younger people in large numbers. But that also means your personal risk exposure will change, so the calculations will change as well.

And I'm ignoring there the issue for those who can't take the vaccine, or for whom the vaccine is ineffective. They will rely on other people taking it and lower community transmission to get any semblance of normal life back. Mind you, that element of the story could evaporate if we discover that vaccinated people can still catch/transmit the disease in a significant way, albeit they themselves are asymptomat or have only mild symptoms.

Good post.

This might seem a little harsh but there’s an element of selfishness in being excessively cautious about taking the vaccine. Society is willing to let HCWs put themselves in harms way every day, treating people with the virus. We also sit back and wait for other people to volunteer as clinical trial subjects to test these vaccines (not aimed at you, personally, obviously!)

So it doesn’t seem like a big ask to take on an absolutely tiny risk for the greater good, having let other people take far greater personal risks to get to this point.

 

[11101]

I understand where you're coming from with this, but in order to maintain your "low risk" status, you're currently living with massive restrictions. Freedom to travel and visit family are limited. Freedom to mix normally with friends and potential friends, go to the cinema or to a football match have been curtailed.

It might be that when the over 60s have been vaccinated those freedoms can return, even if the virus is still out there infecting younger people in large numbers. But that also means your personal risk exposure will change, so the calculations will change as well.

And I'm ignoring there the issue for those who can't take the vaccine, or for whom the vaccine is ineffective. They will rely on other people taking it and lower community transmission to get any semblance of normal life back. Mind you, that element of the story could evaporate if we discover that vaccinated people can still catch/transmit the disease in a significant way, albeit they themselves are asymptomat or have only mild symptoms.

Those restrictions are unlikely to change until a significant portion of the population is vaccinated i.e the vaccine is known to be safer. Even still, you would need to calculate how much the probability of exposure is affected by the restrictions, and how the various numbers will change as more people catch the virus and more people take the vaccine.

There are a lot of factors involved that will change those numbers, but for me a 40x risk increase is too much. Like i say, I am not against the vaccine, once that multiple comes down a little, as it will over time. For other demographics it's already very different and that's why they are getting it ahead of me.

That’s a really odd way of using statistics. It’s like assessing the risk of flying in a helicopter by also counting the millionaires who could afford their own helicopter.

When you consider the risk of dying from getting hit by lightning, do you only count those people who actually get hit, or everybody who could get hit? Of course it's the latter.

then statistically the vaccine is better because its 0 in 43,500

No it's not. It's <1 in 43,500.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Is it fair to say that once 50% of people have immunity the natural transmission will start to dwindle?
Immunity by vaccine or herd - whatever.

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.

 

[Wibble]

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

edit:
Some rough probability calculations...considering ~320k under 40s have caught the virus in Italy and 14 have died with no underlying conditions.

Vaccine
Exposure = 1
Dying = 0.00002
Total = 0.002% / we know from the news its <1 in 43,500

Virus
Exposure = 0.0128
Dying = 0.0004
Total = 0.000056% / 1 in 1.8 million

Nobody had died from the vaccine and as far as we know there have been no serious side effects either - just the usual minor ones.

Even if there are some very rare vaccine side effects revealed by the long term post approval analysis (as we monitor for with any vaccine) the potential negative effect of vaccination (if any) will be one or more orders of magnitude less than the impact of the population catching covid - as most/all would eventually if we just let it go.

IMO not getting immunised at the first opportunity is both selfish and misguided.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Those restrictions are unlikely to change until a significant portion of the population is vaccinated i.e the vaccine is known to be safer. Even still, you would need to calculate how much the probability of exposure is affected by the restrictions, and how the various numbers will change as more people catch the virus and more people take the vaccine.

There are a lot of factors involved that will change those numbers, but for me a 40x risk increase is too much. Like i say, I am not against the vaccine, once that multiple comes down a little, as it will over time. For other demographics it's already very different and that's why they are getting it ahead of me.





When you consider the risk of dying from getting hit by lightning, do you only count those people who actually get hit, or everybody who could get hit? Of course it's the latter.




No it's not. It's <1 in 43,500.

Even if we stick with your maths (which I’m not entirely convinced by) that <1/43,500 risk will rapidly decrease as soon as we start putting needles in arms. We’ll also get longer and longer term safety data on those 43500 trial subjects. Have you a tipping point in mind where you would be willing to take one for the team?

 

[Brwned]

Sorry if i am not being clear enough. You must compare everybody who could be exposed to both the vaccine and the virus. There are 25 million under 40s in Italy. All 25 million will be exposed to the vaccine, and all 25 million could be exposed to the virus. It doesn't matter that not all of them will be, you still have to count them all to calculate the risk. It is not just the probability of dying from the virus once you have it, it is the probability of catching it times the probability of dying from it.

Think of it this way. Sitting on your sofa at home, what is your chance of dying from Covid, remembering that to die from it you have to catch it first? For me it is currently approximately 1 in 1.8 million. If i go and get the vaccine, it is <1 in 43,500. Both those numbers will change over the next year, but right now they are too far away for me.

edit:
Some rough probability calculations...considering ~320k under 40s have caught the virus in Italy and 14 have died with no underlying conditions.

Vaccine
Exposure = 1
Dying = 0.00002
Total = 0.002% / we know from the news its <1 in 43,500

Virus
Exposure = 0.0128
Dying = 0.0004
Total = 0.000056% / 1 in 1.8 million

What's this 0.002% figure? Someone died from the vaccine? If someone died but the vaccine was determined to have had no impact then to make it a fair comparison you would need to include all of the under 40s who died but it was determined covid was not the cause. Which I imagine would slightly change your "40x" risk increase assessment.

 

[Wibble]

What's this 0.002% figure? Someone died from the vaccine? If someone died but the vaccine was determined to have had no impact then to make it a fair comparison you would need to include all of the under 40s who died but it was determined covid was not the cause. Which I imagine would slightly change your "40x" risk increase assessment.

Nobody has died and nobody has so far had a serious side effect attributable to a covid vaccine.

 

[Pexbo]

When you consider the risk of dying from getting hit by lightning, do you only count those people who actually get hit, or everybody who could get hit? Of course it's the latter.

Lightening isn’t contagious.

 

[Vooon]

Lightening isn’t contagious.

That'd be a fecking typical thing to appear in 2020 wouldn't it? Bloody contagious lightening!

As for myself and a vaccine I don't expect to get one in a long while anyway, maybe around December 2021. Unless I'd get one through work, but I doubt I'd be first in line here either. It doesn't really matter that much to me anyway. As long as the effect is that society here in Norway slowly goes back to normal in 2021 I'm happy. Start with those who really need it, I'm not one of those. I don't expect to be able to travel until 2022 anyway, and still only limited destinations in Europe. Plus, God knows what plane tickets and hotel rooms will cost when the dust settles.

 

[Wibble]

I wonder what the deterioration in efficacy is once the storage temperature drops? Minus 80 degrees can't be that easy to achieve consistently -- whether in the 1st world esp in rural areas never mind the 3rd world.

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.

 

[Smores]

You'd need far more complex calculations for the probability of catching it. It isn't a constant week by week that figure changes and there's too many variables (many unknown) to start mapping it out.

It's not far wrong though, for some people who live the life of a hermit then the vaccine could be more risky. It really depends on your lifestyle.

 

[Brwned]

Nobody has died and nobody has so far had a serious side effect attributable to a covid vaccine.

Yeah I didn't think so. I thought it might be including someone who's died on a vaccine trial from other causes because otherwise I couldn't figure out where the fixed number between 0 and 1 was derived. Now I just see that it's the upper limit, it essentially assumes if they were to run the trial again two people would die, which is a pretty strange way to assess the risk.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You'd need far more complex calculations for the probability of catching it. It isn't a constant week by week that figure changes and there's too many variables (many unknown) to start mapping it out.

It's not far wrong though, for some people who live the life of a hermit then the vaccine could be more risky. It really depends on your lifestyle.

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.

 

[Wibble]

You'd need far more complex calculations for the probability of catching it. It isn't a constant week by week that figure changes and there's too many variables (many unknown) to start mapping it out.

It's not far wrong though, for some people who live the life of a hermit then the vaccine could be more risky. It really depends on your lifestyle.

You would need to never meet anyone ever for anything for the risk of vaccination to be higher. No shopping, no doctor or dentist visits, no visitors, no workmen to fix things when they break and even contactless home delivery isn't risk free. So probably nobody at all falls into this category.

 

[Jimble]

Had been in 40,000 with no safety problems short term. Who know what you can developed in 1 year and onwards. That had not been proven yet. I am not antivax at all. but I do have concerns also

I'd rather have a tail/horn and not worry about this any more

 

[Maluco]

Humans are terrible at judging comparative risk. We happily jump into a car to drive to the beach but are terrified of sharks even though the risk of death or injury from the car journey is far higher.

In this case the minuscule chance of you suffering a serious side effect, only found by post licensure assessment, is hugely less than the chance of getting covid and suffering serious side effects or death.

I'd have happy taken it as part of testing so I'd certainly get it ASAP once it passes Phase 3 trials. And the sooner everyone gets it the sooner we can get back to some semblance of normal. If we don't get mass take-up we won't geet back to normal and it will be the fault of those who are reluctant and want others to take the risk for them, be it those who take the vaccine or those who die or get severe long-term symptoms because we don't get to HIT.

Great post! It’s about collective responsibility, not just taking care of ourselves. We should want everyone to get back to normal, not just hedge our bets on our own interests.

 

[Lynty]

It's the economy, not death rates, that is driving the rush for a vaccine.

 

[11101]

Nobody had died from the vaccine and as far as we know there have been no serious side effects either - just the usual minor ones.

Even if there are some very rare vaccine side effects revealed by the long term post approval analysis (as we monitor for with any vaccine) the potential negative effect of vaccination (if any) will be one or more orders of magnitude less than the impact of the population catching covid - as most/all would eventually if we just let it go.

IMO not getting immunised at the first opportunity is both selfish and misguided.

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.

Even if we stick with your maths (which I’m not entirely convinced by) that <1/43,500 risk will rapidly decrease as soon as we start putting needles in arms. We’ll also get longer and longer term safety data on those 43500 trial subjects. Have you a tipping point in mind where you would be willing to take one for the team?

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.

What's this 0.002% figure? Someone died from the vaccine? If someone died but the vaccine was determined to have had no impact then to make it a fair comparison you would need to include all of the under 40s who died but it was determined covid was not the cause. Which I imagine would slightly change your "40x" risk increase assessment.

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.

 

[Brwned]

You would need to never meet anyone ever for anything for the risk of vaccination to be higher. No shopping, no doctor or dentist visits, no visitors, no workmen to fix things when they break and even contactless home delivery isn't risk free. So probably nobody at all falls into this category.

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 will only make people on the edge more suspicious of people advocating for the vaccine. The average person can see that there's parts of the process that the industry previously held sacred that they now have had to relegate to the benches, and experts have expressed caution about that already - very measured caution, but they haven't dismissed the risk altogether. And the fact it takes place in political and economic chaos will weigh heavily on many people's minds.

I think Pogue's message will motivate the wider public more. We accept risks with vaccinations for obscure diseases already because it's for the good of the society. Those risks are mitigated in every possible way and they are very small but they are there and we accept them. As we should for this. People just need some time to get comfortable with the idea. And for most people they will get that time just due to the rollout procedure anyway.

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.

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.