I have read the opposite. But, for the sake of argument, let us say you are right. How do you know whether or not you’re one of the unlucking one in twenty for whom the vaccine does not work? I’ll give you magic boots that let you float in the air, except one in twenty sets of boots does not work. Gonna go jump off a cliff because you’ve got 95% odds?
There is no such thing as a 100% safe Vaccine.
Never has been, never will be.
You have a much, MUCH higher chance of dying in a car accident than getting any complications from a vaccine, hell, you have a significantly higher chance of dying in a bathtub accident than getting a complication from a vaccine.
Such is life. Set your priorities rationally, not emotionally.
You will live longer and be much happier.
Either that, or go live in a cave like a hermit, terrified of the world around you (at least until the earthquake hits.)
Shorter version: Grow up.
If you’ve got 19 other people that you’re regularly exposed to, and you have the one shot that didn’t work, you will be highly unlikely to get it because the other 19 around you can’t get it to pass it on to you.
Side effects or any long-term issues arising from the vaccines are the potential concern, not anything about whether it’s 90% or 95% effective or whatever. Vaccines become useful at just over 50% for just the reasons above-- reduces the potential number of carriers below a number that allows the virus to flow freely.
No, no! I don’t trust Big Pharma because they try to make more money than they should. Sometimes they get doctors to recommend more expensive drugs rather than equally effective generics. Sometimes they trade on insider information and cause a ripple in the value of my index funds. Because of all that, I’m sticking with nuts and berries. That’ll show 'em!
To repeat, that’s NOT what “95% effective” means. It means that the shot you’ve gotten will protect you 95% of the time you’re exposed to an infected person. It doesn’t mean that one shot in twenty is a dud.
No shit. But that is why you have to keep doing the other virus preventive measures for months after getting your vaccination. You cannot relax your preventive measures until you are confident that everyone around you has been vaccinated, not go back to normal pre-pandemic habits two or three weeks after completing the vaccination protocol.
You’re presuming that @jw1 isn’t someone with health conditions that do make them a higher-risk for taking vaccines and having side effects. Someone who is, for example, immuno-compromised, has a much different risk profile for taking a new and unproven vaccine than someone who is generally healthy and with no significant conditions.
Never did I claim I wouldn’t take a vaccine or say anything negative about any vaccine. I merely posted information on how they can make a one percent chance sound like a 36% chance. But go ahead and stick with your nuts and berries. Myself, I prefer not to swallow everything they claim without doing some digging. Now it’s much harder to dig because they don’t release all their trail data details to the public anymore. Just the results.
Added:
I’d like to see how they arrived at their numbers. I’d like to see the math. That’s not anti-science. Why won’t they release that data anymore? They used to. I used to invest in some bio-pharma companies many years ago. It was interesting to see how they arrived at their numbers. ImClone was the last company I invested in. I have given the sector up because it’s mostly too hard to believe everything they claim and impossible to verify. It’s more like faith based investing. I gave it up about 15 years ago. I will short something in that sector occasionally when the hype is obvious.
Crewman, why is it gonna work this time? Has 30 years of trial and error finally succeeded, maybe? Can we dare to hope this is going to work?
I agree, skepticism is warranted and we need to watch this closely. I hope our public health agencies (FDA, etc) will do their damnedest to protect us. If we ever needed them to do their job, it is now.
Meh, I see it more as the famous people finally volunteering to be the guinea pigs for the rest of us. While we wait for availability, there will be a mass experiment ongoing as it rolls out, and any significant risks and side effects will become more apparent.
“The only people who got severely ill — 30 participants, including one who died — had received dummy shots, said Dr. Tal Zaks, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company’s chief medical officer.”
I have not heard Pfizer and the other vaccine maker that has requested FDA Emergency use waivers report this data yet. This would be an important benefit for those who take the vaccine correctly (two injections, two weeks apart, in this case). Even if you come down with COVID-19, you are likely to have a less serious course of the illness. Like flu shots. Even if you get the flu after vaccination, your course of the illness is shortened, or milder.
Has anyone else reported this “mitigation” effect?
That part I’m clear on.
OTOH, our household have protocols in place with a 9 month track record of success.
Can we do this for the next 1-2 years? I’ll say it’s in the ‘probable to highly likely’ range.
My fam have survived the Great Depression and combat in 3 wars. Pretty sure I can make do in a controlled environment, stocked with N95 masks and nitrile gloves, liters of Purell and several months of dry goods.
Sans internet and cable? I might have to adjust the rosiness of that outlook.
Satisfied with my lot in life-- health-compromised as it may be in present circumstances. I’m fortunate in so many aspects regarding the era and locale in which I live, and the opportunities I’ve carved out. As long as the will and resolve I’m able to muster-- supports how my better half and I are able to manage in this fashion?
Having stayed true to our protocols on PPE, sanitizing and exposure for these last 9 months, I’m willing to wait and watch through the next 9-12 months to get a further read on how I might react to receiving the vaccine. We would still have to continue to do ALL of the precautionary stuff we do now no matter what. What would be the rush to be one of the first recipients of a vaccine?
The real question is how do I know I’m not one of the one in twenty who didn’t mount an adequate immunologic response and then would get infected and then have severe disease. That is a whole lot smaller than one in twenty. But you are correct, you don’t know for sure. It will be interesting to know the details of who in the trials got infected, how bad their infections were and when relative to the dosing of the vaccine did they get infected.
I am hopeful that Biden’s CDC will be up to this task on day one of the release of the vaccine(s). And that his FDA Agency (part of Health and Human Services) appointee is on our side, not the drug companies’ side. And that the two agencies (CDC and FDA) work well together.
