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Originally Posted by alphasaur
I am vaccinated
Here's an argument though, mrna vaccines are relatively novel and in an age group where mortality related to covid is minimal (<30 years old) why should they be pressured to obtain a vaccine when there is no long term data on effects of the novel vaccine on young people. I can understand the hesitancy when it comes to this group of people.
If you are older/have comorbidities, it's much harder to make an argument.
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The main pressure would come from the understanding that they may not get severely sick, but that they could be another host. The more hosts we have, the more potential we have for new variants, which could evolve to be deadly or evolve beyond the immunity provided by the vaccine. The seasonal flu kills mostly 80+ year olds, but the Spanish Flu killed mostly 18-30 year olds and then 30-45 year olds and then 65+, and 45-65 year olds did the best. We don’t know how this thing could evolve. Most who understand this would prefer to not roll the dice.
Besides the above, empathic people tend to understand, and want to avoid, spreading anything that could directly lead to someone’s death. Most geriatrics have gotten the vaccine, so this has become less of a concern. Most of the elderly who haven’t gotten the vaccine are anti-vaxxers, so they put themselves at risk (and others), but they do so knowingly, so that removes some of the personal responsibility to not be a spreader that could cause their deaths. Athough, there are still many people can’t get the vaccine or are unable to develop antibodies from the vaccine. Many people rely on herd immunity to live. These people can’t always live in isolation and quarantine. Fortunately, the risks have lessened a lot, as we are mostly open, and we are “only” averaging around 750 deaths a day, but hopefully that doesn’t plateau because that would still be 250k+ deaths a year. We are at 600k deaths since we started tracking this thing, but still millions of people are still at risk.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.co...perts-say.html
The other argument I hear is, ‘why get vaccinated if I could still get it and be a host or still get it and get sick?’ The vaccine will reduce the viral loads so low that most people won’t be able to get sick or transmit it to others or be hosting enough of the virus to see as many mutations, or again, be able to transmit those mutations. If immunity wasn’t robust enough, it still would likely be enough to turn someone into an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic transmitter (which is why masks were still recommended), reducing the severity or risk of death. People have confused the idea that there exists the possibility that they could still be an asymptomatic host with the reality that the majority of vaccinated people are not going to be hosts. There is a real concern that a variant could emerge that circumvents the vaccine, turning millions of vaccinated people into asymptomatic hosts and kickstarting this whole thing over again.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...ed-people.html
The most likely source of a novel mutation is from unvaccinated people in surging areas like from India. The second most likely source is in unvaccinated people in areas that aren’t surging like the US. The third most likely source is with zoonotic transmission like how this whole thing started, so I would expect vaccines for livestock next along with surveys for COVID mutations in wild animals like we do for the seasonal flu. Livestock already get a number of vaccines including a coronavirus vaccine, so a COVID one wouldn’t be surprising down the line.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/12/20-3799_article
https://www.merck-animal-health-usa....is-coronavirus