Vaccination

Efficacy

• "Refuting Peter Doshi's claims doubting "trustworthiness & meaningfulness" of COVID vaccine results" January 2021. Dr. Doshi's criticisms of the Pfizer reported results is invalid.

Natural Immunity As a Result of Illness

• "Mild COVID-19 cases can lead to antibody protection for life". This is just what we'd expect from any illness, so it isn't surprising. The article does say that a severe case might produce a defective immune response, which I find interesting. Why would that be? Or is it that cases are severe precisely because someone has a defective immune system?

• Twitter thread on how vaccine immunity might well be better than recovery immunity, because it might work better against more strains.

• Brownstone.org article with cites to studies saying natural immunity is much better for covid than vaccines.

Incentivizing Vaccination

• Vaccination in the UK is not mandatory for nursing home workers (April 2021).

• WV Gov. Justice announces $100 savings bonds for people aged 16 to 35 who get vaccinated (April 2021)

Psychology

• Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) tweeted at 4:45 PM on Fri, Apr 09, 2021:

54% of people who *have already been vaccinated* are still very or somewhat worried about catching COVID. https://t.co/U6DN7GCNIg https://t.co/07Eu4v5qqU (https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1380623001146777605?s=03)

• There are plenty of men who though they are quite happy to let a strange man stick their fearful little girl with a needle don't want to get stuck with a needle themselves just to help save some old people's lives.

Policy

I'm conservative and think we should *require* everyone to be vaccinated, just as was traditional with smallpox, measles, etc. It's much less a violation of civil liberties and much less inconvenience than lockdowns or required masks, and much more effective.

• "The Johnson & Johnson‐​Vaccine Fiasco Is Business as Usual For the FDA: The regulatory agency regularly hamstrings the development and use of essential medicines," CATO, APRIL 20, 2021, Jeffrey A. Singer,

Religion

• From the Netherlands: an overview of antivaxx groups in the Netherlands and "bevindelijk gereformeerde" for parents and for doctors.

• Jewish law on vaccination, a pretty good article.

Side Effects

• August 2021 Harvard Med article, nontechnical version. This discusses a two-million person study using data from Israel that found that while there was more myocarditis in vaccinated than the usual rate, there were many more cases among unvaccinated people--- because they caught covid, presumably. The excess rate was 2.7 per 100K for vaccinated, 11 for unvaccinated. The vaccinated cases were mainly males aged 20-34.

Myocarditis and Covid, a first-rate, balanced, bloglike article by Howard, is lead man on one of the big studies. He talks about Mandrola's article on covid and myocarditis a lot. That article isn't about vaccines, just about covid-induced myocarditis. Howard notes that nobody in the US has died of vaccine-induced myocarditis, and that it is so rare that it's hard to study whether it occurs more than covid-induced myo in a particular age group such as 20-34. He also notes that while children get covid only rarely, it's still a lot more common than them getting myocarditis. He talks about severity too. It does require hospitalization in the 2.7/100,000 cases, it seems to me, but there is no permanent harm and most cases are mild, despite sending the patient to the hospital (why do they go, then? Is it to see if it's myocarditis rather than a real heart problem?).

• Long term side effects of vaccines are surveyed in a nontechnical way here. Basically, htere aren;t any.

• |Logical fallacies of anti-vaccination people nicely laid out.

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20210531055507/https://torontosun.com/news/national/not-enough-data-on-kids-and-covid-vaccines-canadian-expert-cautions

• Prof. Byram Bridle in Canada is a serious source. I haven't found anything in writing by him yet, but [1] this half-hour video interview is available on t a different topic-- the adverse effect of lockdowns-- on which he is plausible. Somebody put together a highly sophisticated website attacking him. The attack website looks useful, but its size makes me wonder why somebody thinks it is so important to go after him, and it isn't completely fair. The Toronto Sun quotes him as someone who thinks child vaccination isn't worthwhile because the rare side effects outweigh the rare bad effects of covid, a perhaps reasonable position. Baral et al. say the same thing, though in very general terms.

• Mercola anti-vaccine article is bad.

• "'COVID arm' rash seen after Moderna vaccine annoying but harmless, doctors say," (2021).

• "COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effect Tracker," 2021 but continuing.

Chile

Beyond public health clinics, Chile set up mobile vaccination centers in markets, universities, and soccer stadiums, and even created drive-through centers for shots. The country has now established more than 1,400 vaccination centers.

“They’ve done a really good job of going to universities and markets and other places where people are, as opposed to them having to come into a central location” to get the vaccine, CSIS’s Bliss said...

All people have to do is find the most convenient vaccination site in their region or community and go from there. Nobody has to make an appointment. Anyone who’s up for their second shot is also free to walk in wherever and get it.

It is the exact opposite of the morass of requirements and appointment systems in countries like the United States.

https://www.vox.com/22309620/chile-covid-19-vaccination-campaign

U.S. Organization

Alex Tabarrok Marginal Revolutoin Post Comments:

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Using retail pharmacies to distribute the vaccine is what the Trump Administration pushed from the very beginning and what Biden and leading Democrats fought against. To quote Andrew Cuomo, who Biden cites as a leader on the vaccine and virus response:

“they’re basically going to have the private providers do it. And that’s going to leave out all sorts of communities that were left out the first time when COVID ravaged them.”

“They’re going to take this vaccine and they’re going to go through the private mechanism. Through hospitals, through drug market chains, et cetera. That’s going to be slow and that’s going to bypass the communities that we call health care deserts. If you don’t have a rite aid or a CVS then you’re in trouble and that’s what happened the first time with Covid.”

“we can’t let this vaccination can’t forward the way the Trump Administration is designing it”

sourc with quotes full video: https://news.grabien.com/story-gov-cuomo-threatens-block-trump-admins-distribution-pfizers

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In Indiana, the state site isn't well set up, but it shows all the nearby locations, including grocery store pharmacies. I was vaccinated in the Convention Center, and they set up my second appointment then. What I wonder about is why skilled people like nurses are needed to give shots. It should be possible to do it walk-up (with showing eligibility) in a stadium with one nurse to watch for allergy shock and 100 recently unemployed waiters giving the shots. Is this what Chile did with its stunning success at vaccination?

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Denmark and Norway are waiting for more data. Norway, which has administered the AstraZeneca vaccine to 130,000 people under age 65, has reported five patients who had low platelets, hemorrhage, and widespread thromboses, three of whom died. That’s about one case in 25,000 vaccinees, “a high number with a very critical outcome in previously healthy, young individuals,” Watle says. The country hopes to make a decision on the vaccine within 3 weeks. It can afford to hold off: COVID-19 cases are relatively low and AstraZeneca is delivering so few doses that the extended pause won’t make a big difference in the short term.

[3] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/rare-clotting-disorder-may-cloud-worlds-hopes-astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine

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Dan Elton2021-03-30 07:53:28 5 0 Hide Replies

The appropriate thing would have been for them to publish the estimated possible risk (~1-5 / million) , note that's more likely you'll get struck by lightning this year, add this information to the "drug facts sheet" people are supposed to read before they get their dose, and then move on. Simple. The panic was created by the government's actions, ironically. They were so eager to show they were helping keep people safe that 1. they were willing to let people die on that alter by denying them the vaccine for a few days, and 2. they created a panic over literally a couple in a million chance at a treatable side effect.

Respond

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dan11112021-03-30 10:20:08 8 0 Hide Replies

I agree that people are demonstrably bad at assessing risks. However, what is actually happening in this case? There are two competing narratives, which imply very different approaches:

1) People are going to freak out about a rare side effect, so experts should be extra super cautious to assuage them they are taking things seriously.

2) Many people take their cue from experts, so if experts are over-cautious, people will get the impression the vaccine is unsafe.

It sounds like you strongly believe (1). Do you have evidence to back it up?

There is actually survey evidence supporting (2): European countries that have halted or expressed concern about the AZ vaccine now have much greater public skepticism over it, with those leading the charge having the worst numbers (and greater declines from previous surveys). The UK, which has consistently maintained that it is safe, has the highest public confidence in this jab by far.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-reports/2021/03/22/europeans-now-see-astrazeneca-vaccine-unsafe-follo

This seems like pretty good evidence that overcautious experts are driving skepticism, not responding to it.

And of course, the overcautious response means actually stopping a lifesaving vaccine.