People who worry about long-term effects of the vaccines

[cupid_stunt]

The latest UK figures on the AZ/blood clotting issue can be found via the link before, table 5 shows there's been 372 such cases reported, and sadly 66 deaths.

The overall incidence after first or unknown doses was 14.2 per million doses. Taking into account the different numbers of patients vaccinated with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in different age groups, the data shows that there is a higher reported incidence rate in the younger adult age groups following the first dose compared to the older groups. (19.8 per million doses in those aged 18-49 years compared to 10.3 per million doses in those aged 50 years and over). The MHRA advises that this evolving evidence should be taken into account when considering the use of the vaccine. There is now some evidence that the reported incidence rate is higher in females compared to men although this is not seen across all age groups and the difference remains small.

ETA - which is inline with what dshl has just posted above.

Coronavirus vaccine - summary of Yellow Card reporting

www.gov.uk

 

[kabbes]

Lol at people getting mad at the idea that their faith in something without actually having personal expertise in it represents something sacrosanct, particularly if they argue other people are stupid because they lack the same faith.

The problem is not the belief — which is perfectly reasonable. As noted, why wouldn’t you believe in something which consistently works? Everybody needs an epistemology and this one has good reasons to support it. No, the problem is in not recognising that it is still a type of belief and thus subject to the same biases and reactionary forces as other forms of belief system. That’s the point at which people go off the deep end. If you’re going to accuse others of not understanding why they are wrong, you want to be really sure that you understand exactly why you are right. Otherwise, where is your certainty coming from?

 

[fishfinger]

If uncertainty is good enough for Heisenberg, it's good enough for me.

 

[NoXion]

Lol at people getting mad at the idea that their faith in something without actually having personal expertise in it represents something sacrosanct, particularly if they argue other people are stupid because they lack the same faith.

It's not faith. That's believing in things without evidence.

 

[kabbes]

It's not faith. That's believing in things without evidence.

No it isn’t. The religious have plenty of evidence to justify their faith.

 

[cupid_stunt]

There's a different between 'faith in science', knowing that the evidence suggests a reasonable outcome, compared with 'blind faith in God', knowing there's no evidence to support that belief.

 

[NoXion]

No it isn’t. The religious have plenty of evidence to justify their faith.

They may say that they have evidence for their faith, but when you actually talk to them about the details, it turns out they don't actually have evidence at all.

 

[kabbes]

There's a different between 'faith in science', knowing that the evidence suggests a reasonable outcome, compared with 'blind faith in God', knowing there's no evidence to support that belief.

That’s a false comparison. Nowhere did I say that all belief systems are equivalent

 

[kabbes]

They may say that they have evidence for their faith, but when you actually talk to them about the details, it turns out they don't actually have evidence at all.

Yes they do. Their entire lived experience tells them their life is better with their faith. If that isn’t evidence, I don’t know what is.

 

[cupid_stunt]

That’s a false comparison. Nowhere did I say that all belief systems are equivalent

You didn't, but I am pointing out why I disliked the "replacing God with science" bit, because it isn't equivalent.

 

[NoXion]

Yes they do. Their entire lives experience tells them their life is better with their faith. If that isn’t evidence, I don’t know what is.

And if they change their minds later on, then their experiences will tell them that their lives are better without their faith. In any case they don't actually have evidence that their idea of God exists outside of their own heads.

 

[kabbes]

You didn't, but I am pointing out why I disliked the "replacing God with science" bit, because it isn't equivalent.

It doesn’t have to be equivalent. People now believe in capital-S science in an analogous way to God. Look at how when this virus hit, it was a dominant discourse to hear people assuming Science would find a vaccine and this would deliver us from the evil. Why did they believe that? Was it based on expert knowledge of coronaviruses and immunology? No. Was it because we have always developed vaccines for diseases? Most definitely not. But the faith in Science was found everywhere, from politicians to pub talk.

 

[kabbes]

And if they change their minds later on, then their experiences will tell them that their lives are better without their faith. In any case they don't actually have evidence that their idea of God exists outside of their own heads.

I think you’re getting confused between evidence and the interpretation of that evidence.

 

[xenon]

Meh.
kabbes is it strawman day or something. You seem to be crowbarring something you're interested in, epistamology, what informs belief systems, psychology, into a discussion that seems fairly absent from dogmatic scientism and woulddbe targets of your critique.

 

[NoXion]

I think you’re getting confused between evidence and the interpretation of that evidence.

Creationists use this trick too. "We're looking at the same evidence, we're just interpreting it differently!"

 

[Supine]

This thread has taken a strange turn

 

[kabbes]

Creationists use this trick too. "We're looking at the same evidence, we're just interpreting it differently!"

Well that’s true. And the interpretation of the evidence can be considered and evaluated. When an interpretation requires the rejection of everything that seems to actually work, that interpretation is reasonably dismissed. When we are talking about subjective interpretations of personal experience, however, that isn’t so straightforward.

I fear you have strayed enormously far from the point being made about belief in Science (rather than the usage of science), however.

 

[NoXion]

It doesn’t have to be equivalent. People now believe in capital-S science in an analogous way to God. Look at how when this virus hit, it was a dominant discourse to hear people assuming Science would find a vaccine and this would deliver us from the evil. Why did they believe that? Was it based on expert knowledge of coronaviruses and immunology? No. Was it because we have always developed vaccines for diseases? Most definitely not. But the faith in Science was found everywhere, from politicians to pub talk.

Vaccines haven't always managed to pull a proverbial rabbit out of a hat, but they've certainly been successful enough that the negative impact of the modern anti-vaxx movement wasn't immediately apparent thanks to herd immunity.

 

[kabbes]

Meh.
kabbes is it strawman day or something. You seem to be crowbarring something you're interested in, epistamology, what informs belief systems, psychology, into a discussion that seems fairly absent from dogmatic scientism and woulddbe targets of your critique.

I made a post with many points. This was the one lots of people wanted to disagree with. I’m explaining why I wrote it and why it is at the heart of the point I was making. Is it not clear? The point is: question your motives and assumptions as well s as your knowledge before you dismiss somebody’s concerns. And if you aren’t dismissing anybody’s concerns, then this doesn’t apply to you, does it?

 

[kabbes]

Vaccines haven't always managed to pull a proverbial rabbit out of a hat, but they've certainly been successful enough that the negative impact of the modern anti-vaxx movement wasn't immediately apparent thanks to herd immunity.

Most diseases don’t have a vaccine. Malaria kills millions and has no vaccine. HIV has no vaccine. I could go on. Why were were people so willing believe that this one would be one of the special ones? Was it specialist knowledge? Or was it faith?

 

[NoXion]

Most diseases don’t have a vaccine. Malaria kills millions and has no vaccine. HIV has no vaccine. I could go on. Why were were people so willing believe that this one would be one of the special ones? Was it specialist knowledge? Or was it faith?

There are a lot of diseases which don't have outright cures either, or even treatments beyond the palliative. A significant chunk of those diseases have no cures or vaccines because they haven't had much resources directed their way. But when the resources are directed their way, such as with polio, impressive results can be had. In such circumstances I don't think it's unreasonable to expect results when multiple pharma companies put enormous resources to work on a particular disease.

 

[Supine]

Be careful not to mix faith with hope.

 

[elbows]

I'm relatively faithless. As such I like science and scientists who know the limitations, who can live with significant degrees of uncertainty without having to resort to tricks to push those things into the background. I say goodbye to faith, I say hello to confidence intervals and the balance of probabilities.

The claim about vaccines I found it most easy to make since early on in this pandemic is that this was an event where there would be immense pressure to deliver vaccines at rapid pace (relative to the usual timetables) and at scale.

I also like the bit of the opening monologue from Monkey that goes something like:

That first egg was named Thought.
Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha, said, ‘With our thoughts we make the world.’

 

[elbows]

Most diseases don’t have a vaccine. Malaria kills millions and has no vaccine. HIV has no vaccine. I could go on. Why were were people so willing believe that this one would be one of the special ones? Was it specialist knowledge? Or was it faith?

Beyond my claim about how much pressure there would be to develop a vaccine, I had an open mind about how successful such efforts would be.

But this open mind was not blank or full of invented stuff. It featured knowledge from previous efforts to develop vaccines for the original SARS etc, eg:

Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons from Other Coronavirus Strains

The emergence of the strain of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) and its impact on global health have made imperative the development of effective and safe vaccines for this lethal strain. SARS-CoV-2 now adds to ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

As such there was reason to believe that a promising way to target and thwart SARS-CoV-2 wa already known. Then it became a question of how quickly these efforts could lead to a vaccine that could be manufactured at scale, that provided sufficient protection, and did not have short-term side-effects that would utterly fail risk-reward judgements.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Most diseases don’t have a vaccine. Malaria kills millions and has no vaccine. HIV has no vaccine. I could go on. Why were were people so willing believe that this one would be one of the special ones? Was it specialist knowledge? Or was it faith?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I didn't have faith in a vaccine being developed, I had reasonable hope, whilst being aware that it may not have happen, in fact one of the few articles I book-marked at the start of all this, was this one - Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine.

Once the trails were completed, I developed faith in the vaccines being reasonably good at combating the virus, and reasonably safe too.

Be careful not to mix faith with hope.

Spot on.

 

[Yossarian]

Most diseases don’t have a vaccine. Malaria kills millions and has no vaccine. HIV has no vaccine. I could go on. Why were were people so willing believe that this one would be one of the special ones? Was it specialist knowledge? Or was it faith?

It wasn't happening in a vacuum - from at least March 2020, there were countless reports on the dozens of different vaccine candidates in developments, methods used, potential timelines, etc. - I was still surprised by the speed with which an effective vaccine arrived.

Even 11 months ago, the question here was will you get vaccinated if one is developed.

Will you get vaccinated, assuming a covid vaccine is developed?

Bit shocked by this YouGov poll for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), where only 38% said they "definitely" would and another 31% declared they "probably" would, total 69%. So, let's see how that compares with urbs. The survey spoke to 1,663 people in Britain, with 6% saying...

www.urban75.net

 

[NoXion]

From my perspective, it felt like the development of the vaccines took place at lightning speed; in effect, too quickly for me to start wondering whether or not a vaccine was possible. Reading my first post from the thread Yossarian linked to above, it seems like I had my doubts that I would even get a vaccine even if one was developed.

 

[andysays]

The latest UK figures on the AZ/blood clotting issue can be found via the link before, table 5 shows there's been 372 such cases reported, and sadly 66 deaths.

Coronavirus vaccine - summary of Yellow Card reporting

www.gov.uk

Has it now been demonstrated that those bloodclot figures are "caused by vaccine" rather than simply "happened after vaccine"?

 

[elbows]

Has it now been demonstrated that those bloodclot figures are "caused by vaccine" rather than simply "happened after vaccine"?

The specific nature of the clots (eg occuring at the same time as low platelet counts) and how rare they otherwise are if we remove this vaccine from the picture, increases their confidence that the link is due to something that the AZ vaccines are causing.

Although there is plenty of detail that means I find it hard to summarise such matters using a couple of sentences without potentially ending up accidentally misleading.

Research is ongoing to explain the mechanism behind these events. Several diffeent theories have been presented so far. Inconclusive at the moment, but very little doubt that the vaccine is responsible.

There is another thread for that stuff because it doesnt come under long-term effects.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

From my perspective, it felt like the development of the vaccines took place at lightning speed; in effect, too quickly for me to start wondering whether or not a vaccine was possible. Reading my first post from the thread Yossarian linked to above, it seems like I had my doubts that I would even get a vaccine even if one was developed.

Yes the speed of the actual vaccine design was incredible wasn't it. Literally a couple of days. After that obviously there was a lot of testing but there was always a feeling they were coming I think.