One would think that if the vaccines are so safe and effective as the government loves to say that they are that the government would put their money where their mouth is and boldly declare to pay restitution for anyone damaged by the vaccine (resting safely in the assumption that it will never actually come to that, given that the vaccines are so safe and effective). — baker
He is posed a still unquantified risk by the vaccine. By declining it he is “inconsiderate”. — AJJ
Though I think seldom humanity was betrayed for such a small sum. — Tzeentch
I would invite you to turn those attempts at psycho-analysis on yourself first. — Tzeentch
"It's not like people are agreeing that these measures are necessary to avoid the net cost of millions of lives but then saying "fuck it, I don't care". They don't believe these measures are necessary to avoid the net cost of millions of lives."
— @Isaac
And you know that how, pray tell?
"They don't believe it because their governments have told them it and their governments routinely lie."
What does their doctor say? — Olivier5
This is the typical response (not in a bad way, just useful to summarise). The common themes are
1. It doesn't matter how little the risk is reduced, it makes sense to reduce any risk that one can.
2. It's not about you it's about
2a - the hospital bed you might take up putting pressure on the health service, and
2b - the vulnerable others you might infect if you remain unvaccinated, and
2c - the return to normal that's being postponed by lack of vaccine uptake.
The counter arguments have already been presented, but
1. Low risk reduction means that only small preferences are sufficient to outweigh it, like coffee, bacon, sugar, skipping gym... Just not trusting (or even not liking) the corporations who produce these medicines is clearly in the same category of minor preference as coffee, bacon and gym avoidance. If you do trust the vaccine, then I admit a jab in the arm might be too small a preference, but it depends how much you hate jabs in the arms, it's down to personal preferences at this point. Taking a small increased risk for personal preference is quite normal behaviour. — Isaac
2a. The actual risk is relevant again here though, otherwise the same pressure would apply to a huge swathe of acceptable activities which increase your risk of needing a hospital bed. A moral imperative has to be at least vaguely consistent to have any normative force. Insisting that a very low risk of hospitalisation is reduced even further would apply to dozens of other activities normally considered acceptable. As with personal risk, a small increase in risk to others is still considered part of a normal social compromise made to allow a diversity of personal preferences, so the actual relative figures matter.
2b. The data on how vaccines might reduce transmission is limited and if they do reduce transmission it will vary by cohort. The transmission argument is often wheeled out alongside the symptom reduction argument as if to share in its authority - the two have very different degrees of confidence in their risk reduction. In any case, the person living in rural Wales with a small social group and good hygiene habits is extremely unlikely to have their rate of transmission reduced by any significant amount (and again, as above, there's no normative force behind the argument that all reduction in risk must be taken no matter how small, it's simply not a normal requirement).
Often ignored, but relevant to all these arguments is the fact that immunity drops over time after vaccination. The effects touted for the first 28 days can't be used to assume long-term risk reduction as we know for a fact they they drop off by four months and we don't have any robust data at all on how effective they are after that. Again, if you don't mind the vaccine, and trust the suppliers, then this is all irrelevant because you might as well reduce the risk if you can, but if you don't like the vaccine or don't trust the suppliers, then the risk reduction has to be considerably higher to outweigh the costs and we just don't have the data on that for the long term.
2c. Again, scientific opinion is now largely that vaccination will not bring about an end to the pandemic. The UK's chief adviser recently called the idea "a myth". The sole focus is on preventing the health services from being overwhelmed whilst the virus slowly becomes endemic.
To meet this effect, it's only necessary that people at real risk of hospitalisation (or at real risk of spreading the virus to such people) take the vaccine. That's a very large majority of the population, particularly in America, but it's not everyone. Public health mandates have never tried to account for a minority to whom they don't apply as it waters down the message to very little gain (see 'potatoes are not a vegetable', and 'every unit of alcohol increases your chances of heart disease' as examples - both false, both aimed at a majority who would have taken the truth out of context and missed the important message), so using to public health messages as evidence to contradict this is not appropriate. A public health message is a tool, not a statement of fact.
The public health message on this should be exactly as it is - take the vaccine, mask, distance, clean. But this is not a public health forum and we can afford a little more subtlety here, surely.
And these small risks, if a lot of people make the irrational choice, add up to significant risks for wider society. — Benkei
Without that, we'd still be in lock down. So, if enough people are anti vaxxers... then you cannot normalise social rules because too many people will get sick. — Benkei
The histrionics surrounding and inspiring these measures have had their own consequences for peoples’ freedom, happiness, livelihoods and by extension their health. On this basis I don’t accept the choice not to participate in the parade is irrational. — AJJ
I also don’t accept that lockdowns are necessary; I believe we could have had normalised social rules (that included hand washing and taking care around the vulnerable) from the beginning without the consequences suspect characters like Neil Ferguson convinced so many of. — AJJ
It is normal behaviour and I don't deny this - it is, however, irrational. One important difference as well is that many of the choices you give as an example do not also entail increased risks to others. — Benkei
the problem is that small personal risks and small risks to others add up. If 25 year olds only die once in 125,000 years, then 125,000 of them not getting a vaccine means , with an R0 of .9 (currently in NL) over 1 million other people will be infected by them. That results in about 100,000 hospital admissions, 30,000 ICU admissions and around 200 deaths. With only 1500 ICU beds available you can see the problem. — Benkei
that tidy population-level estimate — known as the basic reproduction number (R0) — hides immense variation at the individual level. In reality, most infections arise from just a handful of people. Around 10% of cases in countries outside China accounted for 80% of secondary infections up to the end of February.
Anyone can question the motive of anyone else but it takes a huge sense of entitlement and some intellectual laziness to ask me to question my own motive for you, which is in essence what Tzeentch was asking... — Olivier5
These questions remained unanswered BTW: — Olivier5
You don't accept it because you believe what? — Benkei
I didn't realise you actually wanted answers! — Isaac
Because I've spoken to many of them, depends on who their doctor is, respectively.
What we're discussing here (or at least the point I'm trying to make) is that something which is good policy on average does not necessarily make it good policy for any given individual. — Isaac
I didn't realise you actually wanted answers! — Isaac
You're welcome not to answer my questions but I will keep asking them, if you don't mind too much. — Olivier5
So you've spoken to many of them antivaxxers and, apparently you trusted them. It didn't come to your mind that they could be dishonest. Which is strange given your general mistrust for folks and society. I can see that some people are worthy of your trust, still. — Olivier5
So what does your doctor say then? — Olivier5
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.