You might be interested to read https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitalist-competition-covid-19-vaccine-rollout

Yes, I'm aware of this.
One of the things that is happening is that efforts to capitalize the pandemic are being masked by emphasizing to place the blame on the currently unvaccinated.

There is also a dangerous simplificationism going on where the experimental covid vaccines are being advertised and praised as if they'd be in the category of classical effective and relatively safe vaccines, trying to borrow the glory of those classical vaccines.

Does the vaccination actually immunise folks to covid 19?
If we are not sure, why would we take it?
If it doesn’t, why take it?
If it does, why bother if others choose not to?

efforts to capitalize the pandemic are being masked by emphasizing to place the blame on the currently unvaccinated. — baker

Yes. Evidence of this here on this site, where Coronavirus posts have focused almost exclusively on the moral culpability of the unvaccinated, with barely a mention of any culpability on the part of the gigantic multinational corporations risking thousands of lives to protect their profits. Rather, these are the white knights to whom we should all submit in our ignorance.

There is also a dangerous simplificationism going on where the experimental covid vaccines are being advertised and praised as if they'd be in the category of classical effective and relatively safe vaccines, trying to borrow the glory of those classical vaccines. — baker

Indeed. Xavier Symons writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics makes the same point

There are important ethical differences between a potential COVID-19 vaccine and existing vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine. Given the current speed of the clinical trials process for COVID-19 vaccine research, as well as the likelihood that any approved vaccine would be rushed into mass production, a COVID-19 vaccine will have much more limited safety and efficacy data available than is the case for existing vaccines. This, in addition to the widespread politicisation of vaccine research, means that citizens can reasonably be much less certain that a COVID-19 vaccine will be safe and effective than they would be about other vaccines. — Xavier Symons

It's understandable that many people are exhausted from the pandemic and feel a desperate need for a solution. But exhaustion and despair, no matter how painfully they are felt, are still not means for arriving at an effective solution.

I suppose the process (vaccine development) can be sped up if the standard duration (longer) is due to logistics issues and not due to biological factors that have to do with the pathogen (Covid-19) or the test animals/humans. Good point!

It's not as simple as I thought it was! :up: — TheMadFool

Thanks for considering it. I think it does have some basis in reality, but I was really just demonstrating how much concern was being derived from assumptions regarding time. I don't know of any other vaccinations that were produced in hopes of thwarting an endemic cycle during a pandemic. The novel case of being both new and heavily encouraged due to trying to outpace a pandemic seems to be reason alone to discard it. Then, the necessary scale demands the ability to organize and mobilize capital; which entails using a large medical manufacturer. So, the vaccine arrives on the table condemned, because it hasn't already existed and hasn't been produced by some imaginary artisan small batch vaccine operation.

Can you please help me see how this is a philosophical topic? If so, to which category in TPF does it belong?

Can you please help me see how this is a philosophical topic? If so, to which category in TPF does it belong? — Alkis Piskas

Applied ethics.

the vaccine arrives on the table condemned, because it hasn't already existed and hasn't been produced by some imaginary artisan small batch vaccine operation. — Cheshire

Condemned? I think you're confusing 'condemned' with 'reluctant to inject the entire future generation of the human race without a little more data'.

Condemned? I think you're confusing 'condemned' with 'reluctant to inject the entire future generation of the human race without a little more data'. — Isaac

More like reluctant to extend my personal decisions to the scope of the world's children to maintain a position.

There is an interesting bias that comes along with this discussion. Because, each position correlates to action or inaction in recent memory. It is rare a philosophical position is being lived.

Applied ethics — Isaac

Nice. Thanks.

Infection is morally irrelevant without transmission (which you already account for in the second term). The two morally relevant factors are need for health services (not the same as infection, clearly) and transmission — Isaac

Yes, but without infection transmission is impossible. If the vaccine reduced infection and transmission each by 50%, overall likelihood of the subject transmitting the virus is reduced to 25% versus baseline. Even if the protective effect was merely 30% in each of these, this would equate to roughly 50% less transmission, which given its exponential can vastly change outcomes of a pandemic. Even given some of the somewhat disheartening recent data, this condition is met:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-study-moderna-vaccine-far-better-than-pfizer-at-preventing-delta-infection/

This does not even touch on transmission rates.

Protection against ICU admission is a separate issue, and demonstrably robust with the vaccine:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-breakthrough-infections-vaccines.html


Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated?

If you do, you can only be cherry picking data to satisfy some ulterior agenda.

If you don't, then how is that an insufficient moral imperative? What exactly is your aim?

If dissenting voices are to be suppressed, they should be suppressed on the basis of good science, not on the basis of their agreement with institutions, especially government ones. — Isaac

Certainly. How is what constitutes good science to be assessed by the layperson, though, if not by using the majority consensus as the yardstick in any field?

The majority consensus seems to be that the vaccines are for the most part safe and effective. It is understandable that governments and authorities operate on the assumption that, in an emergency situation, public debate with dissenters from this consensus, would only confuse the populace and lead to an increase in "vaccine hesitancy", which could only worsen the situation. Some small risk is acknowledged but people are being asked to accept that personal risk for the sake of the common good. Given the situation; given the damage extended lock-downs will inevitably do to economies, with the increased suffering, illness and death that would inevitably entail, it does not seem to be an unreasonable request..

Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated? — hypericin

I was wondering this too. Also the converse: how much worse would it be right now if we had no vaccines at all? All the evidence points to: a lot worse.

Yes, but without infection transmission is impossible.If the vaccine reduced infection and transmission each by 50%, overall likelihood of the subject transmitting the virus is reduced to 25% versus baseline. Even if the protective effect was merely 30% in each of these, this would equate to roughly 50% less transmission, which given its exponential can vastly change outcomes of a pandemic. — hypericin

Yes. So vaccination is one way of reducing transmission. I'm not sure who you think is denying that.

Protection against ICU admission is a separate issue, and demonstrably robust with the vaccine: — hypericin

True again. So the vaccine is one way to reduce ICU admission too. Again I can't see where you might be getting the impression that anyone's denying that.

Of course you completely ignored the actual argument...

A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant. — Isaac

... If you don't understand my arguments, that's fine, you can ask for them to be clarified, but it's pointless discussing if you're just going to ignore them.

Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated? — hypericin

Yes. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated to avoid that

Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their caretakers. — Martin Kulldorff - professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School

Before you reply, since this thread has taken such an odd course thus far - I'm not picking on you for any reason other than you happen to be the one I'm replying to at the moment - just take a moment to think. I've just quoted a professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School (one of the top medical schools in the world). I've previously cited papers from immunologists and epidemiologists from the world's top medical journals in support of my position. Do you think you replying with whatever it is you 'reckon' that you've picked up from the newspapers is going to constitute a compelling counter argument?

How is what constitutes good science to be assessed by the layperson, though, if not by using the majority consensus as the yardstick in any field? — Janus

Relevant qualification, publication in a respected peer reviewed journal, and lack of obvious conflict of interest. Does that seem complicated to you, it seems quite obvious and simple to me - what am I missing?

The majority consensus seems to be that the vaccines are for the most part safe and effective. — Janus

I'd agree for adults. For children (and on the matter of boosters) I wouldn't even agree that it's a clear majority, but let's assume is is for the sake of argument (even if only a narrow one)...

It is understandable that governments and authorities operate on the assumption that, in an emergency situation, public debate with dissenters from this consensus, would only confuse the populace and lead to an increase in "vaccine hesitancy", which could only worsen the situation — Janus

Well no. It might have been reasonable had the government taken no advice at all on the matter. That would certainly be an attractive theory. The problem is, the government has been advised, and it's been advised that this is unlikely to be the case.

https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/26/medethics-2020-107076, https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/26/what-does-public-health-really-mean-lessons-from-covid-19/, https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/93803, https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/5/296, https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/03/08/medethics-2020-106805

...I could go on, but citations seem to be of limited use here. I'm not claiming the psychologists and behavioural scientists are all of a mind here - there's dissent! - but the majority are arguing that a refusal to discuss the serious issues actually promotes vaccine hesitancy. It just makes the government and their institutions sound clandestine, authoritarian and conspiratorial, which are the three main triggers for not trusting them. But of course, why should we trust what the majority of scientists are telling us...!

Some small risk is acknowledged but people are being asked to accept that personal risk for the sake of the common good. Given the situation; given the damage extended lock-downs will inevitably do to economies, with the increased suffering, illness and death that would inevitably entail, it does not seem to be an unreasonable request.. — Janus

No indeed. it's a perfectly reasonable request. It's often the way the debate is framed, which is baffling. It's like it's being framed using a theory of mind we should all have discarded by the age of about three. We have different minds, yes? So in the minds of the people refusing the vaccine, it is not serving the common good. So the weigh-up is irrelevant. The people who believe it's for the common good have already taken the vaccine, those remaining (generally) don't believe it's for the common good, so they're unlikely to be persuaded by an argument like that. They believe it's for the benefit of the pharmaceuticals (or China, or occasionally the lizardmen from the centre of the earth!) and that their governments are lying to them about both the risks and the benefits.

The question is - what is now the best course of action to take to convince these people that the governments are telling the truth, and that the vaccine is in their community's best interests, not the interests of some global cabal? Is it to shut down debate, call everyone who disagrees a lunatic/idiot/sociopath and continue to filter additions to the £52 billion to the pharmaceutical companies have already made in direct contravention of the WHO advice? Do you really think that's going to convince the hesitant?

Yes. So vaccination is one way of reducing transmission. I'm not sure who you think is denying that. — Isaac

As for transmission - as I've said, we've no evidence yet for a reduction in transmission compared to other strategies so it's unknown. — Isaac

And pray tell, what are these other strategies? Endless lockdowns? Wearing masks the rest of our lives? Keep in mind that the same mouth breathers screaming about their "freedom" to infect others via not vaccinating are the ones screaming about their "freedom" to infect others via not wearing masks and fully reopening no matter what.

Or is your idea to let the virus run its course and infect everyone? Sorry, I absolutely do not accept this reckless endangerment of my or my loved ones well being in service of politically motivated pseudoscience.

True again. So the vaccine is one way to reduce ICU admission too. Again I can't see where you might be getting the impression that anyone's denying that. — Isaac

I'm not seeing any relevance to the claim that the unvaccinated infectious are clogging up hospitals.... — Isaac

Of course you completely ignored the actual argument.. — Isaac

Is this ignorant "argument" really worth addressing? Obesity and skydiving are not transmissible diseases. Nor are they pushing hospitals to the brink of collapse.

Yes. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated to avoid that — Isaac

Says who? Because Martin "herd immunity" Kulldorff does not. Rather, for him letting the virus run rampant, causing unknowable lives lost, or ruined by long covid, is somehow acceptable. Preventing this does not rise to the level of "need".

So rather than have everyone vaccinated, you must prefer the current state of affairs. Where, driven by massive disinformation (an effort you seem eager to make your little contribution to), people are refusing the vaccine in droves, making us suffer through yet another nightmare surge.

I've just quoted a professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School (one of the top medical schools in the world). I've previously cited papers from immunologists and epidemiologists from the world's top medical journals in support of my position. — Isaac

Please. Who cares? You can cherry pick fringe "experts" all day. This is mere appeal to second-rate authority. Who will you cite next, Scott Atlas?

I wouldn't have a problem with anti-vaxxers if they were anti-hospitalers as well.

And so long as they are anti-wherever-I'm-at-at-any-given-moment

Relevant qualification, publication in a respected peer reviewed journal, and lack of obvious conflict of interest. Does that seem complicated to you, it seems quite obvious and simple to me - what am I missing? — Isaac

Depends on what you mean by "conflict of interest".

All the data so far seem show the vaccines to be safe and effective for the most part. Long term issues are merely theoretical possibilities, no one knows just what will happen, but the consensus is that there is no good reason to think there will be widespread long term issues with the vaccines. There would be no point at this stage to have a public debate about that anyway, just because there is no long term data. How do you think the public would react if public debates about the merely conjectured future safety of the vaccines were played out? There should be clear determinations, tabulations and accounts of the actual presently evidenced level of risk of injury and death from adverse effects of the vaccines versus presently evidenced risk of injury and death from the virus for the various demographics; I'll agree to that much.

A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant. — Isaac

It reduces the rate of transmission more than any "lifestyle choice". Unless you are wondering around not exhaling. The moral question is whether publicly justifying yourself for your own self-satisfaction is worth the possibility of misleading others. Simply, suppose your wrong and just making yourself feel better with these epic debates. What benefit is it to anyone else? What harm, is arguably non-trivial.

You acknowledged the lizard people camp is in full support. Is that not reason enough to take a step back?

It's like it's being framed using a theory of mind we should all have discarded by the age of about three. We have different minds, yes? So in the minds of the people refusing the vaccine, it is not serving the common good. — Isaac

Your mind dictating reality again? It is considered from a collective point of view because the pandemic operates on a collective level. Covid isn't your personal interruption, it is everyone's problem.

Depends on what you mean by "conflict of interest". — Janus

I mean something like being paid by the industry benefitting from your results, having a personal relationship with test subjects, beneficiaries, or funders... The usual stuff that goes into COI statements (or should do). It's often possible to dig a bit deeper than the COI, which I think is sometimes a good idea, if a lone scientist is saying something whacky... Standard stuff, not a controversial idea.

How do you think the public would react if public debates about the merely conjectured future safety of the vaccines were played out? — Janus

Well, that's the subject matter of the medical ethics papers I cited. It's not as simple as you seem to think. If, instead of being honest about the safety, the public are told it's 100% safe and anyone suggesting otherwise is a lunatic, a large minority are just going to find that super suspicious. Does that really strike you as so odd? A massive multinational corporation stands to make billions out of a product and meanwhile we're told it's totally 100% safe and anyone saying otherwise needs to shut up right now. Can you really not see how that's going to go down with the exact demographic that currently need to be persuaded?

And it's not limited to covid, which, despite the crisis level, will pass. The suspicion is now going to fall more heavily on things like polio, MMR, hepatitis... All of which save millions of lives.

It's an unbelievable misjudgment of human nature to think you can persuade anyone to take a vaccine by saying "shut up, you're totally wrong, you idiot. Now, roll up your sleeve" , I mean, who on earth thinks that would work and what rock did they spend their childhood under?

The other issue is that quashing debate about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines has a knock on effect depending on the types of strategy used. If you look at the sort of hyperglycaemic rant typical of the pro-vaccination YouTube/Facebook/Twitter post we get, such as , for example. This kind of rhetoric is seriously at risk of killing thousands more and prolonging the crisis, by making remaining unvaccinated into a moral proscription. It's exactly the problem we see being played out now with the WHO warning...

I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant. But we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - WHO

Far from the naive moralising of "If more people had been vaccinated we wouldn't have the Delta variant", it's actually the case that if fewer people had been vaccinated (in Western countries) and the vaccines instead went to the vulnerable in the developing world, we might not have the delta variant.

Overly simplistic messages in a complex situation inevitably backfire.

If, instead of being honest about the safety, the public are told it's 100% safe and anyone suggesting otherwise is a lunatic, a large minority are just going to find that super suspicious. — Isaac

Except the public has never been told it's 100% safe. It has always been acknowledged that there are adverse reactions and a small number of deaths.There is an official consensus assessment of the efficacy and safety of the vaccines, based on case numbers for the former and reported adverse reactions and deaths for the latter, and anyone disagreeing with that must be using a different set of statistics or else indulging in speculation about theoretical possibilities.

So, there really is nothing to debate, is there?

You're assuming the public get their information from official sources like the FDA, WHO, or CDC. I'm not here accusing the official public health institutions of suppression (though there is a case to be made). I'm talking (in this whole thread) about the ethics and pragmatism of individual moralising. The majority of the public get their information through WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter. News outlets next. The number who get it direct from the institutions is small.

The point I'm making here is about the actions of individuals. The manner in which we treat others in our community, you know, basic ethics. What I (and the majority of medical ethicists) am saying is that the treatment of dissenting views from qualified experts by ordinary citizens (via social media, even forums like this) is detrimental to the resolution of the pandemic. It condenses opposition to vaccination, actually lends support to conspiracy theory, and causes difficulty changing policy in a dynamic situation.

So regarding...

there really is nothing to debate, is there? — Janus

Reacting in the way we see here, and on social media, to reasonable people presenting well-supported dissenting opinion is dangerously unhelpful. Depends if you want to debate that...

This kind of rhetoric is seriously at risk of killing thousands more and prolonging the crisis, by making remaining unvaccinated into a moral proscription. — Isaac

Oh really, Issac? Its my kind of rhetoric that is doing this?

The suspicion is now going to fall more heavily on things like polio, MMR, hepatitis... All of which save millions of lives. — Isaac

After spending untold hours manning the forums sowing doubt about the vaccines, he piously bemoans the public's declining trust in vaccines.

Amazing.

It's an unbelievable misjudgment of human nature to think you can persuade anyone to take a vaccine by saying "shut up — Isaac

I don't care if you take it or not. Just shut up.

Good article on this in the guardian today, for the vanishing few who actually give more of a shit about sorting this pandemic out than they do about lazy virtue signalling.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/15/vaccine-hesitancy-broken-relationship-state-conspiracy-theorists

Reacting in the way we see here, and on social media, to reasonable people presenting well-supported dissenting opinion is dangerously unhelpful. Depends if you want to debate that... — Isaac

You quoted out of context. The objection was to the lie you offered concerning 100% support. I'll pleasantly exchange a difference in opinion, but cheating the matter to support the false outrage isn't the same as variance in scientific perception of the facts.

The truth is the rest of the public had the same reservations and put themselves at risk for something greater than themselves. Demanding respect for a heightened phobia under the guise of reasonable and plainly emotionally charged discourse is the only conspiracy that is observable. Would you like to borrow a razor?

The objection was to the lie you offered concerning 100% support. — Cheshire

Struggling to distinguish rhetoric from claim doesn't surprise me from you. I'll offer a guide since the territory is clearly unfamiliar; claims are the propositions followed by an indication of the source - a citation, a quote, a mention of the origin... something like that.

As to the inference, are you suggesting that it's untrue that media posts treat vaccine safety as a binomial function, statements like "the vaccine is completely/totally safe" don't occur? Similarly do you think you could readily supply pro-vaccine media posts with expressions such as "the vaccine is not completely safe, but..."? No. The sources I'm referencing are quite homogeneous in their polemic interpretation of 'safety'.

The truth is the rest of the public had the same reservations and put themselves at risk for something greater than themselves. — Cheshire

Ah, so you do know the difference between rhetoric and claim. Or are you prepared to stand by this statement as the proven truth about 'the rest of the public's motives?

Demanding respect for a heightened phobia under the guise of reasonable and plainly emotionally charged discourse is the only conspiracy that is observable. — Cheshire

In what way would that be a conspiracy? I mean, good effort at anacoluthia, but falls a little short.

"reasonable people presenting well-supported dissenting opinion"

Never mistake what is doing as a reasonable exchange of ideas in search of the truth. His role is to be an apologist for the indefensible, giving it the veneer of legitimacy. This is an easy distinction to miss, and it deserves much more attention than it gets.

His arguments are paper thin, but that is beside the point. Tear one down, the goalposts shift, and two more take their place. Argue with a flat earther, a 9/11 truther, a holocaust denier, a climate skeptic, and you will have the same experience.

Find any atrocity in history, any massacre, any genocide, and you will find "intellectuals" fulfilling this function of providing "reasonable, intelligent" cover for the indefensible.

And make no mistake, this is an atrocity: thanks in large part to the grotesque and intentional mishandling of the pandemic, and the outrageous politicization of masks and now the vaccine, the number of dead in the US will in a few days exceed that from the Civil War. The Issacs of the country provided cover for Trump's death cult then, and over 300 9/11's worth of casualties later, they continue to do so now.