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Post by Corey on Mar 5, 2021 19:23:48 GMT -5
Can anyone tell me what are the bad things people are worried might happen from getting vaccinated? I thought the worst that can happen is an allergic reaction, which can be treated. Or, the vaccine doesn’t work as well as we thought, or you feel weird for a couple days. The vaccines went through all the clinical trials just at a faster rate. We already know people are fine with them in the short term, and I don’t understand what damage would be caused in the long term. There’s only so much carcinogenic material you can fit inside that small amount of liquid, and it’s one or two doses, not something you’re exposed to repeatedly. Can such a thing damage organs or something? I don’t know what the down side is. I come from the train of thought of someone who spent years doing street drugs, plus has been eating foods that has shit in the ingredients I can’t even pronounce. And I breathe whatever the hell is inside car exhaust, and I used to smoke and currently vape. So a lil squirt into my arm seems like the least intimidating thing ever. It seems like there’s no way it can possibly be worse than the coronavirus, even in the worst case scenario. Yeah I think the idea is just that there would be a bad immune reaction. I think why it is specifically a concern in this case is because Covid elicits a very strong immune reaction. So I think the idea isnt that the vaccine itself is dangerous, but maybe that a person has something weird about their own immune system that causes a very adverse reaction to the vaccine. I am somewhat sympathetic to this, but since we are at 100 million vaccinated I think its safe to say its not an issue for the average person. I think people are also worried because it was a new technology that was used to develop it. Honestly I haven't seen any credible reason to think this would be a problem. I mean whether you use DNA or RNA or protein how a vaccine works is still the same. But I think just because it's something new people are worried that something crazy is going to happen.
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Post by Amee on Mar 5, 2021 20:01:45 GMT -5
Can anyone tell me what are the bad things people are worried might happen from getting vaccinated? I thought the worst that can happen is an allergic reaction, which can be treated. Or, the vaccine doesn’t work as well as we thought, or you feel weird for a couple days. The vaccines went through all the clinical trials just at a faster rate. We already know people are fine with them in the short term, and I don’t understand what damage would be caused in the long term. There’s only so much carcinogenic material you can fit inside that small amount of liquid, and it’s one or two doses, not something you’re exposed to repeatedly. Can such a thing damage organs or something? I don’t know what the down side is. I come from the train of thought of someone who spent years doing street drugs, plus has been eating foods that has shit in the ingredients I can’t even pronounce. And I breathe whatever the hell is inside car exhaust, and I used to smoke and currently vape. So a lil squirt into my arm seems like the least intimidating thing ever. It seems like there’s no way it can possibly be worse than the coronavirus, even in the worst case scenario. What if it cures devness as an unintended side-effect? That would be tragic and I'm sure they didn't test for it in those rushed trials.
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Post by someonerandom on Mar 5, 2021 20:51:05 GMT -5
I dunno man...I definitely drank my share of stuff out of a bathtub in college so I probably have no real reason to judge it but I just keep thinking about the zombie apocalypse. I'm seriously fine just letting everyone else get it while I stockpile weaponry Wouldn’t being a zombie be ideal though? Life would be so simple. The only thing you need to think about is brains. You wouldn’t have to worry about who is a Nazi or anti-vaxxer, because they all taste the same (presumably). I want to be a zombie. Maybe I fake my identity and get another vaccine. @corey Ah, I didn’t think about the immune response thing. But yeah, seems like at this point we know that’s not really an issue. I remember learning about vaccines a long time ago and they said some people can’t take vaccines for medical reasons, which is why it’s so important for everyone who CAN get vaccinated to do so, so we can get herd immunity and protect everyone. And no vaccine is 100% so the more people who get it, the harder it is for a virus to jump from person to person.
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Post by Slinxter on Mar 5, 2021 21:05:59 GMT -5
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Post by mike on Mar 6, 2021 2:33:35 GMT -5
I'm not saying that it's a rational concern, but some people are aware of "proven safe & effective" medications like Thalidomide.
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Post by wonk on Mar 6, 2021 16:14:13 GMT -5
I'm not saying that it's a rational concern, but some people are aware of "proven safe & effective" medications like Thalidomide. Anyone old enough to remember thalidomide, is also old enough to remember the devestating effects of polio. It is also worth noting thalidomide is not a vaccine, and was taken daily, not 2 shots 3 weeks apart
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Post by mike on Mar 6, 2021 21:34:54 GMT -5
I am well aware of the difference between Thalidomide & the Covid vaccine, the point is not about the medications, but rather a lack of trust in government. When people question the veracity of what they are being told, it is easy to be cynical. A good example of being lied to recently is the changing position on masks. In January 2020 they said they did NOT recommend wearing masks, and within a month or so they REQUIRED people to wear them, and justified their earlier position by explaining that was to ensure healthcare providers got them first. Understanding the motivation to lie doesn't restore trust. As far as your reference to polio & it's vaccine, read up on the "Cutter labs" incident. For those not familiar with the Cutter labs incident, when the polio vaccine first became available Cutter labs produced a vaccine that actually CAUSED the recipient to contract polio. It took a while to track down the error & come up with a solution.
As far as the Covid vaccine, when it becomes available to me I will take it. I am not arguing about the wisdom of accepting the vaccine, but rather one of understanding some people's reticence. There are times when people refuse to accept facts. Vaccines do NOT cause autism but argue that to an anti-vaxer. On the other hand, there have been times that legitimately undermined people's trust.
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Post by wonk on Mar 6, 2021 22:11:03 GMT -5
Geez dude, the thalidomide debacle was over 60 years ago, and the cutter labs 65 years ago.
Anyone using those as an argument is really grasping at straws
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Post by someonerandom on Mar 6, 2021 22:56:29 GMT -5
Geez dude, the thalidomide debacle was over 60 years ago, and the cutter labs 65 years ago. Anyone using those as an argument is really grasping at straws Another one is the infamous Tuskegee experiments where the US government experimented on black folks letting them die of (curable) syphilis in some shockingly blatant racist studies. Those were also a long-ass time ago... I agree that they don’t seem to be good examples of why not to get vaccinated, although it does somewhat answer my earlier question about what people are afraid of. I’m not sure how many of these anti-vaxxers (because that’s what I’m going to call them) actually cite these examples. I think it’s more limited to people trying to think of what the fuck is wrong with the anti-vaxxers, and trying to come up with reasons why they might be that way. I’ve never seen an anti-vaxxer talk about these things, although I’m sure it’s possible.
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Post by Amee on Mar 7, 2021 5:03:21 GMT -5
I have some anti-vaxxers in my extended family, but I'm not sure if they're representative of most anti-vaxxer's mentality. Maybe the more moderate ones. They became anti-vaxxers after having a child with a mental disability and having to make a very difficult medical decision for that child (risky brain surgery yes or no, I've been told). They came into contact with a doctor, who apparently really helped them emotionally in that situation and I think he was a bit of an alternative, "let things take their course" type. I don't know if they think there's a link between vaccines and their child's disability. I don't think so, because although they did start out having that child vaccinated before they found out about the brain anomaly, it's blatantly obvious medically (as far as I'm aware) that there isn't a connection. For them I think it's just part of a mentality/worldview to let things take their natural course and not inject their children with anything "unnecessary". Which is a mentality you can easily have when everyone else is vaccinated and you don't remember what a nightmare these diseases were. I do think that's a selfish and/or ignorant decision when it comes to vaccines that have been proven to work safely and effectively for years or even decades. I would be interested to know what exactly my relatives' thought process is, but I don't see them very often and I guess I'm just not the type to randomly start a discussion about how they're selfish or ignorant at one of our rare family gatherings - especially if, as in their case, it started as a bit of a coping mechanism. It doesn't help that they're otherwise lovely people. As for my own "reservations" about the Covid vaccine, I think it comes from what mike has explained. I know those incidents are decades ago and of course medicine has advanced immensely since then. I'm not scared of medicine making those same kinds of mistakes again. But, humans are still human and they can make mistakes. I mean, I was pretty stunned when it came out that the AstraZeneca people had accidentally only given half a dose to some of their trial participants. How can you make such a mistake in the trials for the most important vaccine of probably your lifetime?? Because humans make mistakes. Then it looked like the half dose might actually have been more effective and nobody - as far as I'm aware - had any idea why (although I've read that it's also possible that that was a random effect caused by other factors). It was an uncertainty that concerned effectivenss and not safety, so it's not like that makes me horribly concerned, but it just drives home the point that there are some uncertainties. I mean, there's so much we still don't know about the virus itself, about its origin, about its long-term effects. It doesn't seem that far-fetched that there are some things we don't yet know for certain about the vaccine and its effects. So if I combine the things we don't know about the virus with the speed, urgency and pressure with which this was developed and is distributed, with the fact that humans sometimes make mistakes and the fact that I myself am no expert so can't really verify any of that for myself... it leaves me with a little bit of a "hmmm...". Not enough to not get the vaccine, just enough to feel a little bit queasy about it. I hope they get at least the dosing right when they jab me with the Astra juice. I'll admit that I have been vaccinated numerous times with things I don't even remember without having the slightest clue about how those vaccines were developed or how exactly they work. So the media presence of all this is certainly having a psychological effect. I've read a number of headlines since December along the lines of "XY number of people die after receiving Covid vaccine". Which sounds shocking. Then you read the article and it turns out that Nope, people didn't die from the vaccine, they died after receiving the vaccine. Yup, Covid vaccine does not make you immortal. What a shame. wonk I asked about people's thoughts about the different vaccines a couple of months ago and if I remember correctly you said you're getting whichever one your friend the virologist is getting. Care to share which one that is? I felt a bit better about the Pfizer (which I was originally supposed to get in phase 1) than the Astra.
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Post by wonk on Mar 7, 2021 6:53:59 GMT -5
I will almost certainly be getting the astrazenaca one. She got the phase one as she works with the virus, which in Oz was Pfizer. Australia is producing 50m doses of the astrazeneca one in Melbourne, combined with the fact that I am out in the country, this is the one easiest to store at normal fridge temperatures.
I was happy to have either, I know that mrna isn't actually that new, but viral vector vaccines have been around for a long time.
I also feel that these while fast, were not overly rushed. You have to remember they started researching with SARS but then that died out and the money dried up. So they already had a basis. If you talk to anyone in research, the hardest thing is finding money, but love him for loathe him, Trump threw 10 billion at the problem. The next issue is usually finding volunteers for studies, but in this case there were hundreds of thousands lining up. Thirdly testing efficacy was so much easier than normal, as we are in a raging pandemic, so participants were being exposed to the virus.
The data that came out of Scotland on the astrazeneca vaccine was stunning, and it was with 500,000 real world people.
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Post by infinatedreams on Mar 7, 2021 7:16:41 GMT -5
As wonk says the date is stunning. 83% reduction in deaths for the over 80's! Not a scientific prediction or hypothetical 'hope'. Real life results from a thorough vaccination programme. One of the very few things our government has got right. Shame the european govenments tried to cover up their incompetence on a vaccination programme by 'suggesting' the AstraZeneca vaccine wasnt effective for over 65's. Now the hard evidence is here they are playing catch up. Italy even refused to allow an export of AstraZ to Australia beause they wanted it first! www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56240220"A single shot of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid jab reduces the chance of needing hospital treatment by more than 80%, an analysis in England shows. The Public Health England data showed the effect kicked in three to four weeks after vaccination. It was based on people aged over 80 who were the first to receive the jab."
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Post by Amee on Mar 7, 2021 8:32:34 GMT -5
Shame the european govenments tried to cover up their incompetence on a vaccination programme by 'suggesting' the AstraZeneca vaccine wasnt effective for over 65's. Now the hard evidence is here they are playing catch up. So, are you glad about Brexit yet? I don't know about other European governments, but over here what they said wasn't that it wasn't effective, but that it likely was, they just said there wasn't enough data to be sure, so they would give the Astra to the younger people and Pfizer to the older until there was sufficient data. Now that it has been approved for the over 65-year-olds, our government has spontaneously decided to send teachers to the back of the line and have all over 65s vaccinated first. Which seems a bit questionable to me, since teachers are out on the front lines, while most pensioners can shield pretty well. The latest I've read about the AstraZeneca delivery problems over here is that it does look a bit questionable why Astra is delivering far fewer vaccines than promised to the EU, but delivering as intended to the UK, since the latest evidence suggests that the EU has a smiliar contract as the UK and didn't sign it later. But I'm not really following these things closely. What's your take? Are we being srewed by Astra or are we just incompetent?
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Post by infinatedreams on Mar 7, 2021 18:28:21 GMT -5
Amee oh im still not happy about Brexit, we will be paying for it for decades though ive no doubt the 'brexiteers' will blame all the problems on Covid. As for the AstraZeneca stuff ... in a nutshell yes its incompetence and a little bit of getting screwed. The contract were signed at similar times but the UK one had one that contained 'financal penalties' if AstraZ didnt deliver what it promised but the EU one gave up any right to sue AZ in case of delays. So perhaps there AZ are taking the route of least financial pain by fullfiling UK orders first. Chuck into the mix that the vaccine was developed in collaboration with Oxford Univeritsy/Astra and the UK governement filled the steering board with its people, no suprise we were ready with the supply chains and in prime position.
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Post by wonk on Mar 8, 2021 2:01:32 GMT -5
Italy is a bit weird, they have 1.5m doses of the astrazeneca vaccine and have given 320k.
I doubt many people in Oz would have begrudged them the extra 250k doses had they asked, but the way they did it is a bit annoying.
We know they need it more than us, but I hope they use it. We have zero community transmission in Oz, so an extra few weeks won't hurt us. CSL commonwealth serum laboratories, start delivering over a million doses a week from the 22nd of March, so we will be good, just a week or so behind
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