Clearly a lot of people on LW want to take it ASAP. I strongly don’t want that—to the point where I will most likely emigrate if it becomes obligatory in my country. Please help me understand what I’m missing. Here is my understanding:
As a young, healthy person, SARS-Cov-2 poses extremely low risk to me:
There is no significant risk of lasting negative health consequences after infection
There is no strong proof for such effect. Such proof would greatly increase acceptance of governments’ policies, so there is a strong incentive to publish any such proof. There has also been enough time and cases to identify a pattern of negative consequences lasting 6+ months. Therefore I’m treating absence of a proof despite strong incentives and opportunity as a strong proof of absence.
A pessimistic infection fatality rate is probably around 0.01%
Case fatality rate for young people is below 0.5%
Halve that, since half of the infections do not result in the disease.
Reinfection is extremely rare, if at all possible.
Again, there is a strong incentive to make people fear a reinfection.
Yet all we hear is rare individual reports that might be test failures or long-lasting lingering infections.
The risk of infection is getting smaller and smaller, as more people in the population become immune—either by infection or by vaccination
Conversely, there is a non-negligible risk associated with a vaccine that has been developed so quickly.
The trials have lasted only months, so we don’t know whether there are some side-effects that surface only after some significant time
The trials have only been conducted on tens of thousands of subjects so far, so very severe but rare negative consequences might have gone under the radar
Pfizer’s vaccine requires extremely low temperatures, so there is a danger that in some locations it will be transported or stored incorrectly, causing greater risk than that suggested by the trials so far
Both the governments and the vaccine manufacturers have twisted incentives, meaning there is a serious danger of too optimistic reports of the vaccines’ efficacy and safety
I can only think of two reasons why young, knowledgeable people are so excited about taking the vaccine:
they have contact with someone at risk that they deeply care about, and want to minimise the chance of infecting them, even at the cost of personal safety;
they value safety of strangers higher than their own safety, and want to take the vaccine for the sake of all the people at risk in the society.
[Question] Why are young, healthy people eager to take the Covid-19 vaccine?
Clearly a lot of people on LW want to take it ASAP. I strongly don’t want that—to the point where I will most likely emigrate if it becomes obligatory in my country. Please help me understand what I’m missing. Here is my understanding:
As a young, healthy person, SARS-Cov-2 poses extremely low risk to me:
There is no significant risk of lasting negative health consequences after infection
There is no strong proof for such effect. Such proof would greatly increase acceptance of governments’ policies, so there is a strong incentive to publish any such proof. There has also been enough time and cases to identify a pattern of negative consequences lasting 6+ months. Therefore I’m treating absence of a proof despite strong incentives and opportunity as a strong proof of absence.
A pessimistic infection fatality rate is probably around 0.01%
Case fatality rate for young people is below 0.5%
Halve that, since half of the infections do not result in the disease.
Divide that by 25 and stockpile large quantities of vitamin D in case you get the disease (https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/finally-confirmed-vitamin-d-nearly-abolishes-icu-risk-in-covid-19)
Reinfection is extremely rare, if at all possible.
Again, there is a strong incentive to make people fear a reinfection.
Yet all we hear is rare individual reports that might be test failures or long-lasting lingering infections.
The risk of infection is getting smaller and smaller, as more people in the population become immune—either by infection or by vaccination
Conversely, there is a non-negligible risk associated with a vaccine that has been developed so quickly.
The trials have lasted only months, so we don’t know whether there are some side-effects that surface only after some significant time
The trials have only been conducted on tens of thousands of subjects so far, so very severe but rare negative consequences might have gone under the radar
Pfizer’s vaccine requires extremely low temperatures, so there is a danger that in some locations it will be transported or stored incorrectly, causing greater risk than that suggested by the trials so far
Both the governments and the vaccine manufacturers have twisted incentives, meaning there is a serious danger of too optimistic reports of the vaccines’ efficacy and safety
I can only think of two reasons why young, knowledgeable people are so excited about taking the vaccine:
they have contact with someone at risk that they deeply care about, and want to minimise the chance of infecting them, even at the cost of personal safety;
they value safety of strangers higher than their own safety, and want to take the vaccine for the sake of all the people at risk in the society.