So will you take the vaccine?

[msquared]

Yes when it is my turn.  Which I expect will be late spring/early summer.

I expect my youngest son, who works as a pharmacy tech at a children's hospital to get it next month.  He is not front line, but does have to go to the wards (the children's hospital is running an over flow ward for the main hospital, so there are Covid patients there at times).

[LetterRip]

Yep - I'm likely same time frame as you or later.

[Mynnion]

Absolutely.  I lost one elderly friend and have another in critical condition.  Other friends have spent time in the hospital one on a vent for two months.  I am not as concerned about my own health as that of my wife and mother.  I also believe anyone who can should get it to increase herd immunity.  The sooner the better.

[Seriati]

Yes, but I won't be a priority recipient. 

[TheDrake]

Give me all the vaccines. We still have a prayer to shut this down before the virus mutates beyond controlling.

[yossarian22c]

Yes, as soon as I'm available to take it. Phase 2 or general population depending on how they classify people with underlying health conditions.

[JoshuaD]

Absolutely not. This thing isn't tested enough.

[TheDeamon]

I'm in the wait and see camp, but as I'm pretty much at the back of the line for getting the shot at present anyway.. It's probably rather moot.

[DonaldD]

There have already been millions of vaccine doses administered and there have only been trivial numbers of adverse responses primarily allergic reactions by those who have allergy issues.

By the time anyone here has access to to any of the vaccines there will likely have been tens if not hundreds of millions of doses already administered.

Contrast that with, as of today, in the United States, more than one person in 1,000 have already died from the virus. So, millions of doses of vaccine, negligible numbers of serious side effects or deaths, as opposed to a total death rate of significantly more than one in 1000.

This is a no-brainer, from a purely selfish perspective, but also from a societal perspective

[JoshuaD]

There have already been millions of vaccine doses administered and there have only been trivial numbers of adverse responses primarily allergic reactions by those who have allergy issues.

By the time anyone here has access to to any of the vaccines there will likely have been tens if not hundreds of millions of doses already administered.

Great, so we have tested it reasonably wide for any consequences after two weeks, and tested it narrowly for consequences going out to a few months. I hope for everyone's sake that there's no big side effect lurking two years or fifty years down the road.  I know I don't want to be the guinea pig.

Contrast that with, as of today, in the United States, more than one person in 1,000 have already died from the virus. So, millions of doses of vaccine, negligible numbers of serious side effects or deaths, as opposed to a total death rate of significantly more than one in 1000.

This is a no-brainer, from a purely selfish perspective, but also from a societal perspective.

There are people for whom taking the vaccine makes sense, I agree.  My father is over 80 years old and he wants to take it so he can go back to living a normal life. I think that's a fine decision.

I'm 36 and I'm healthy; I'm not overly worried about dying from COVID. The world is dangerous, and this is another dangerous thing in the world.  I don't like the idea of losing my sense of taste or having long term reduced lung capacity, so I wear a mask at grocery stores and I wash my hands. That being said, I'm not willing to stop having family get-togethers. My nieces and nephew are aged four through ten. There are only so many Chirstmases left while they're still kids. I'll take a little risk to keep those.

Similarly, when I weigh the benefits for myself of the COVID vaccine against the risks, I don't think it adds up in the vaccine's favor. There are unquantified risks in taking that vaccine.  Maybe they won't ever manifest. Maybe the thing is perfectly safe. Or maybe it causes a significant increase in cancer down the road, or (as my girlfriend who has a doctorate in immunology and follows the medical literature on COVID says) maybe the vaccine could make future infections of COVID more harmful. Time will tell, and I hope to be wrong, but I know I'm not going blindly down that road.

[msquared]

Josh

How long do you want to wait for long term side effects to show up?  I mean you mention 50 years, but 50 years ago I got the polio vaccine.  Should we have waited for that?

[JoshuaD]

We did wait for that one. We made the first vaccine in 1935, we waited 20 years until ~1955 to mass inoculate, and we still saw serious consequences (paralysis and death) as we rolled it out. We didn't arrive at the modern vaccine until 1987, and we effectively eradicated polio in the 1990's. 

I don't know an exact timeline for the COVID vaccine. We've gotten a lot better at these things, so I think it'll be faster than the 50 years it took with Polio.  I know I would be against taking the polio vaccine in 1935, and I'm similarly against taking the COVID vaccine in 2020.

[DonaldD]

What that analysis ignores is that the medium and long term effects of Covid-19 infections are also unknown - and there is no evidence that those long term effects for the afflicted will be less damaging then the also unknown negative effects of the vaccines to those so-afflicted.

But what we do know is that the negative effects of infection are far worse in the immediate and short term than those of the vaccines in production.  And we also know the risks involved in reducing levels of herd immunity inherent in large portions of the population being vaccine-hesitant.

To make an honest comparison, you would need to analyze:

• A. The short term effects of COVID-19 infections
• B. Medium term COVID effects
• C. Long term COVID effects

and contrast those to:

• 1. The short term effects of taking one of the vaccines
• 2. Medium term vaccine effects
• 3. Long term vaccine effects

We really only have a good grasp on A and 1, and A would seem to be far worse for all segments of the population than 1 (yes, even for young, healthy people).

For B, there is growing evidence, and that evidence suggests there are pretty frequent, and serious, chronic effects of infection for all segments of the population.  The vaccines would need to have some pretty spectacularly bad side effects, and would need to be experienced by a significant proportion of the people taking the vaccines, for the vaccines to cause damage in even the same order of magnitude as the virus.

For C, and for 3, there is simply no data.  But worrying that 3 is worse than C is just not supported by any logical reasoning.

[DJQuag]

Let's be honest about what this thread is.

This thread is nothing but bait to try and bring out those among use who are perfectly willing to go tell the rest of us, and our grandmothers to boot, to just go *censored* themselves.

*I'm* healthy so *I* could never fall victim to such a low class disease. Not my family either!

Blah blah blah. Maybe a handful of people have an allegeric reaction. Meanwhile as others have pointed out 1/1000 Americans have already died from this virus. You need to choose where you stand because this is something people will remember.

Measles, rubella, polio. "Crazy" people ended up out there saying they'd solved the whole thing and every freaking time there was the one guy hanging back, "It's not been tested properly!"

Except of course said pandemic killer had been tested and approved.

[Grant]

Yes.  ASAP. 

[NobleHunter]

I think the risk analysis should include harm to other people. If all "low risk" people decide not to get the vaccine then high risk people who can't get the vaccine will remain at risk. Not to mention that inadequate take up of the vaccine increases the risk of mutations.

I'm going to get it as soon as they let me. I even scored a flu shot before the supply went tits up.

[DonaldD]

I think the risk analysis should include harm to other people.

I agree - but JoshuaD's stated argument was based exclusively on personal benefit.

What also almost always goes unmentioned in these analyses of personal safety is the economic effects: if significant numbers of people refuse vaccination, and the effects of COVID-19 are prolonged unnecessarily, then the drag on the economy will also be extended... more people out of work, more business closers than otherwise and a slower recovery in general.