> Long COVID-like symptoms or not, the protection afforded by COVID vaccines still clearly outweighs the negatives.
I don't think it's that simple to make such a blanket statement anymore. In much/most of the developed world, over half the population has already received 2 doses of vaccine and the conversation is moving from "What about the people who choose to remain unvaccinated?" to "Are you fully vaccinated with just 2 doses?" and "How many boosters do we give and how frequently do we give them?" We've gone from thinking that we might need a booster a year to advising people to get boosters just months after a previous jab.
In light of omicron, the cost/benefit analysis is not anywhere near as clear anymore, especially when it comes to these boosters. There's also the issue that risk varies by magnitudes of order between age and comorbidity risk groups, and overall risk of severe outcomes is lower for all groups with omicron.
From the article:
> She says she has preliminary evidence that vaccination can lead to microclots, although in most cases they go unnoticed and quickly disappear—an effect she and a colleague saw in their own blood and that of eight other healthy volunteers, which they sampled after their vaccinations.
This highlights the fact that there's a ton we still don't know. What if there are subclinical effects of vaccination that have the potential to affect people's health in negative ways, either in the near term or long term? Even small changes in uncommonly tested biomarkers can be clinically meaningful over longer time periods.
Perhaps it's reasonable to argue that made the right decision early on by accepting these unknown risks in light of the efficacy of the vaccines at preventing hospitalization and death pre-omicron. But is it reasonable to do that with never-ending boosters when the currently dominant strain is proving to be far less virulent in all groups? Is it still reasonable to push for vaccination and boosting of children and younger and middle-aged adults who are otherwise healthy and at significantly less risk than older, unhealthy groups?
If we just blindly accept that the cost/benefit analysis of vaccination always favors vaccination, how would we ever know that we've crossed a line where that is no longer the case?
The cost-benefit of vaccination doesn’t always favor vaccination, which is why we mandate the polio vaccine but not the dengue fever vaccine, because the latter comes with attendant risks relative to the potential benefit.
As far as the evolving science on what has to happen, well, it’s a rapidly changing situation. If someone had said at the start of the vaccine schedule, “hey, there’s going to be an incredibly infectious strain in late 2021 that will render vaccines much less effective”, maybe they would have mandated three shots up front. But they didn’t know that, and so when the first round of vaccine trial results came back with a 90%+ efficacy rates, I remember there were people arguing that those numbers were TOO effective, and we should reduce the volume of the second dose or remove it entirely in order to vaccinate more people. Good thing we didn’t do that.
As far as the whatabouts - great, yes, therapeutics are great. More therapeutics. But focusing on omicron’s reduced level of severe cases misses the point of vaccination, which is that we don’t only vaccinate for ourselves, we do it to try to reduce spread in the community. We vaccinate to try to make it less likely that new variants that are better at escaping immune response arise. Maybe if everyone had embraced vaccination we wouldn’t be close to 2k dead/day.
> As far as the evolving science on what has to happen, well, it’s a rapidly changing situation. If someone had said at the start of the vaccine schedule, “hey, there’s going to be an incredibly infectious strain in late 2021 that will render vaccines much less effective”, maybe they would have mandated three shots up front. But they didn’t know that, and so when the first round of vaccine trial results came back with a 90%+ efficacy rates, I remember there were people arguing that those numbers were TOO effective, and we should reduce the volume of the second dose or remove it entirely in order to vaccinate more people. Good thing we didn’t do that.
But then governments and businesses started to mandate the vaccines, even though they had no clear vision of the future, while there already were signs of lowered efficacy and side effects. It's all cool as long as it is voluntary with a focus on risk/benefit ratios, but as of now, people are demonizing others who want to wait for a clearer picture. Since all that new science regarding efficacy, side effects and natural immunization is bubbling up now, I am sure that anyone who tried to force the vaccine on others will be deemed pretty reckless soon.
Who would support Rwanda-style forced vaccinations for example?
I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but there is no reliable evidence that will make it less likely for new variants to arise. The current thinking is that variants are most likely to evolve in immunocompromised patients who experience prolonged infections. Vaccination is less effective for patients with defective immune systems.
Increasing vaccination in the population overall reduces the velocity of spread and reduces the likelihood that an immunocompromised person will have the opportunity to have one of those long-term infections that create variants. It also gives the world time to create therapeutics that might be able to treat immunocompromised individuals with Covid and do the same. It’s not only about individual protection.
“ Over the next decade, give or take a few years, every single person on earth has a date with this virus. We will all be exposed, and the virus might replicate in some of our respiratory mucosa.”
Exposed, not infected, though even if they did say infected, a 10 year timespan is better than a 2 year timespan.
I don't think it's that simple to make such a blanket statement anymore. In much/most of the developed world, over half the population has already received 2 doses of vaccine and the conversation is moving from "What about the people who choose to remain unvaccinated?" to "Are you fully vaccinated with just 2 doses?" and "How many boosters do we give and how frequently do we give them?" We've gone from thinking that we might need a booster a year to advising people to get boosters just months after a previous jab.
In light of omicron, the cost/benefit analysis is not anywhere near as clear anymore, especially when it comes to these boosters. There's also the issue that risk varies by magnitudes of order between age and comorbidity risk groups, and overall risk of severe outcomes is lower for all groups with omicron.
From the article:
> She says she has preliminary evidence that vaccination can lead to microclots, although in most cases they go unnoticed and quickly disappear—an effect she and a colleague saw in their own blood and that of eight other healthy volunteers, which they sampled after their vaccinations.
This highlights the fact that there's a ton we still don't know. What if there are subclinical effects of vaccination that have the potential to affect people's health in negative ways, either in the near term or long term? Even small changes in uncommonly tested biomarkers can be clinically meaningful over longer time periods.
Perhaps it's reasonable to argue that made the right decision early on by accepting these unknown risks in light of the efficacy of the vaccines at preventing hospitalization and death pre-omicron. But is it reasonable to do that with never-ending boosters when the currently dominant strain is proving to be far less virulent in all groups? Is it still reasonable to push for vaccination and boosting of children and younger and middle-aged adults who are otherwise healthy and at significantly less risk than older, unhealthy groups?
If we just blindly accept that the cost/benefit analysis of vaccination always favors vaccination, how would we ever know that we've crossed a line where that is no longer the case?