Taking everything written at face value, a big problem with the author's thinking is that they ask "Did we have a complete picture of what the vaccines did, or were we standing on top of an iceberg with lots of information still lurking underneath?" but they do not seem to have the same concern about the virus. And that's strange, because there is ample evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection is producing long-term effects in a lot of people, so we probably don't have a "complete picture of what the virus does".
This is a rational, data-driven piece of writing, even by a software engineer, and in the past (I’ve been here for over ten years) it would have fit very well into this community.<p>It is a call for more communication and understanding of different opinions.<p>Since I’ve posted it this article got flagged and unflagged multiple times, the first flag appeared within minutes (i.e. the user pressing the button did not even have a chance to read the article).<p>I wonder what made people so aggressive and short-tempered about different points of view recently.
There are a few leaps of logic that the author thinks follow naturally but don't; for example:<p>> <i>I looked at the global picture and thought, well it’s clear that the vaccines aren’t stopping the spread of disease. It looks like getting vaccinated is moving towards becoming more of a personal health decision than a public health necessity</i><p>Vaccination reduces hospitalization by 96% [0], which <i>is</i> a public health necessity.<p>I don't have time to share all the instances I saw of this magical thinking, but they're in there.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(21)00061-2/fulltext" rel="nofollow">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-19...</a>
European here.<p>> Or perhaps at a minimum we’ll recognize natural immunity is at least as good as these vaccines?<p>Yes, for some months, and then it decades. And that's the only thing that you can save from the article.<p>> The vaccines continued to do great at preventing hospitalizations and deaths, but there was now no doubt that they weren’t going to contain the spread.<p>Ditto. So you have a duty to get vaccinated. Everything else, all your hours reading papers[0], this wall of text, all your excuses, are a way to easy your conscience. You are selfish, and you put yourself in front of your community.<p>I'm probably biased: I come from North Italy, I've seen the army removing corpses from hospitals 'cause they were just too many: I've seen what the virus can do if it finds the right conditions, and I've a lot of friends working in hospitals.
This winter has been way better, and the strain on the health system way lower.<p>If you don't do your part, you care more about yourself[1] than about the society around yourself. It is only right if the society answers in the same way, and cut you out.<p>[0] is that useful in any way? I cannot say I understand papers that are not from my field, but here the author seems to be able to read papers from a totally different field without problems<p>[1] Better: you care more about what you think is _safer_ for yourself. Not what actually is. To avoid an almost null risk in the future, you put your community at risk
I don’t think more rebuttal is needed than this. You can find a lot more statistics that say the same thing.<p><a href="https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/covid-19-vaccine/breakthrough-dashboard?fbclid=IwAR1pTdREFmSkke5WyES65K0VI_QkWZXAuzXanZ-MzX7hM0lqsbwdCVpv93I" rel="nofollow">https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa...</a><p>This fellow is obviously highly intelligent. Intelligence doesn’t automatically give a person good ideas any more than a big engine makes you a good driver. I have met extremely intelligent people who think we faked the moon landings, that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and so on. It’s a big reason I am not on board with the cult of IQ.
Save yourself a few minutes and skip to the end where the author makes the argument:<p>If I vaccinate now, then I will be encouraging vaccine mandates in the future.<p>It really comes across as "if anyone tells me what to do, I'm going to do the opposite because if I comply they can tell me what to do again in the future." I get that this mindset is prevalent, but I have no idea where it comes from. Anyone with a similar outlook on life have a chance to shed some light on it? Was there a pivotal event or a series of situations that accumulate? Having not gone through that, it's hard to relate.
Welcome to authoritarianism - it's a mutually-occuring quality. People pick their chosen leadership from the set of available options and line up to follow them. Once that happens, any remaining assumption of good faith disappears - if someone is doing something "wrong" then the assumption becomes that they're following the wrong leader rather than for something that could be empathized with.<p>Politically I've been dealing with this for decades as a libertarian - whether talking to someone from the blue tribe or from the red tribe, I always end up being othered because even though I mostly agree with where they're coming from, I don't accept the blind spots buttressing their Party's business-sponsored Kool Aid.<p>For Covid in the US, the authoritarianism was really kicked into overdrive by Trump's decision to reject reality and expert opinions, deny there was any problem that needed addressing, and politicize what would otherwise be common sense like wearing a respirator to protect yourself. Once such a big lie became a mainstream political rallying cry, the authoritarian cards had been dealt and were here to stay.<p>At this point I'm too burnt out to deal with extra sources of uncertainty (including just rolling the dice by choosing to get Covid). Vaccination status is a good first pass at telling if someone has been taking the pandemic seriously. Perhaps if I had a good friend who was unvaccinated I'd inquire about their respirator usage and exposure profile (it might even be lower than vaccinated people sending their kids to municipal daycare!). But really any extra exposure is unnecessary at this point, so apart from visiting older family and the like I'll hole up for the winter and revisit in the spring when casual meetings can occur in open air. This pulling back is of course a general response to social breakdown, and I do hope that breakdown stops at some point.
Author seems to miss the problem of hospital capacity completely, at least where i am, this is the biggest driver of restrictions, when it looks like hospitals are going to run out out beds, restrictions are increased, as capacity increases again, restrictions are relaxed.<p>So, not getting vaccinated is not just a personal choice, and i’m not sure the risk of dying is the same as the risk of being hospitalized. And assesing risks of getting one disease over another fails to take into account it is a new disease and is an addition to existing risks, not an either/or situation.<p>If the unvaccinated also refuse hospital treatment, maybe they can claim it’s a personal choice
"We don't know the long-term effects of the vaccine, which is kind of a small dose of the virus itself that we know has long effects but who knows, the vaccine may be worse. I'll disregard the known good effects of the vaccine preventing hospitalization and saving lives directly or indirectly. People should decide to put others at risk as a personal choice. Also being in the oppressed minority makes me feel like Spartacus".
I've got the freedom of association. I'll other anyone I want thank you very much.<p>The concern about precedent is ridiculous. The precedent was already set hundreds of years ago; we aren't breaking new ground here with vaccine mandates