Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
How do you know that? I've had Covid twice and it was nothing like the symptoms you're describing there.
None of us know how Covid would affect us. But in 99% (probably more than that) of us, it's no worse than a cold or mild flu. Automatically thinking that you're going to end up in hospital is silly.
You are the reason this is still happening, then.
What part of "other people exist" is unclear? I get vaccinated so I'm unlikely to be a vector for spreading the virus to people who'd die from it due to pre-existing conditions or age.
Do you know who I caught Covid off the first time? My step-dad, who had been vaccinated twice.
It doesn't stop you spreading it Covid, but keep pretending it does if it makes you feel better.
You know what? You're right, getting vaccinated doesn't make it impossible to catch and spread a disease. What it does is reduce the possibility, and reduce the severity and duration if you do catch it. What you're doing is applying your personal experience - an anecdote - to everyone.
No vaccine ever has been 100% effective. Not even the smallpox vaccine. 100% effectiveness isn't possible. You happened to catch it from a vaccinated person. It happens. Doesn't mean being vaccinated didn't reduce the severity of your step-father's illness or the duration of his contagiousness. It almost certainly did both.
People I know who have been vaccinated and then caught Covid have had it worse than me and are in the same age group.
They all say "glad I got vaccinated, otherwise it would have been worse". Based on what, exactly? Hope?
Based on the science, not on anecdotes.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/health/covid-antibody-response-vaccines/index.html
Stop mistaking your personal experience for everyone's personal experience.
It's a common mistake to believe that our personal experiences are typical. It even has a name, the Availability Heuristic. Some use the term anecdote.
But when making decisions about things like whether to vaccinate or not vaccinate, it's important to look at probabilities. And to do that we have to look at what happens to large groups of people. Thankfully, this has been done. Various studies have been conducted which looked at large groups of people, literally millions in some cases and their conclusions have remained consistent.
They are that the vaccine has some risks, but they generally are mild. But more importantly, the risks of the vaccine are lower than the risks from getting Covid.
That doesn't mean that everyone who gets vaccinated won't have a side effect, or that everyone who isn't vaccinated will suffer be injured by Covid, but it does mean that, on average, you are far better to be vaccinated than unvaccinated.
I can link to some of the studies if you like.
If you're in an at-risk group, yes. But you don't need to be vaccinated if you're under-60 and healthy, because the vaccines only protect you, not anyone else as you can still pass it on. So the whole period with vaccine passports and other nonsense was stupid, harmed the cause of getting people vaccinated and led to increased scepticism of vaccines in general.
What you seem to be saying here is that if you are under 60 vaccines aren't worth the risk to you personally, and that they don't stop transmission thereby failing to remove a risk to others over 60. Tell me if I got that wrong.
Assuming that I didn't, let's unpick that:
It is correct that the risks of Covid to younger people are less than older people, but they are not zero. Your statement implies that it is only older people who are at risk, which is not correct. Vaccines still reduce the risk for younger people too:
"Among hospitalized adolescent patients, two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine were highly effective against Covid-19–related hospitalization and ICU admission or the receipt of life support." https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2117995
In fact, while younger people are less likely to suffer severe adverse symptoms from Covid, vaccination actually has a GREATER protective effect for young people against potential severe consequences . i.e. the consequences are mitigated more for young people than older people.
"We found a substantial effect of age on the results. Many HRs in younger individuals (<60 years-old) were in general lower (i.e. favouring vaccination even more) for outcomes significantly associated with vaccination" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159122001118
The r value for vaccinated people is lower than for unvaccinated people. That is, a vaccinated person with Covid will expose less people to Covid than an unvaccinated person will, which is safer for everyone else.
So in conclusion, vaccination does reduce the risks of Covid injury in people under 60 (as well as those over 60), and does reduce the rate of transmission.
When it comes to complex issues like this, the only sources of information that should be considered can best be found on Google Scholar.
Easy to get COVID twice when you take no precautions.
You are the problem.
Twice in three years is "not taking precautions"? 😂
Since you put so much stock in personal anecdotes, I've had it zero times in three years, so clearly my precautions are superior to yours, and there is zero possibility that I've gotten lucky in any way.