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Not sure why the parent was downvoted, because I think it nails the current sentiment. For some people the COVID vaccine(s) were rushed to market, with limited

Not sure why the parent was downvoted, because I think it nails the current sentiment. For some people the COVID vaccine(s) were rushed to market, with limited clinical trials, intended to vaccinate the entire adult population, with limited data as to their immediate effectiveness and with no data about long term effects. You can debate whether the above points are valid or not, but for some people they certainly raised a safety flag. I completely agree that the vaccine scepticism around the COVID vaccines is now carrying over into other, well tested, well understood and very, very beneficial vaccines.

gadders 1mo ago
Yeah. People are lumping all vaccines together in an attempt to boost the credibility of the COVID vaccine. Unfortunately what it is actually doing is ruining the credibility of all the other vaccines that have been around for years and are well understood.
- antonyt 1mo ago
  Were all the other vaccines "well understood" when they were initially rolled out en masse? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don't know the history. I don't really understand what people's expectations were for a new vaccine intended to combat an ongoing global pandemic.
  - gadders 1mo ago
    I don't think they were developed in less than 6 months, and probably had more testing (and have had far more since).
  - kansface 1mo ago
    Several labs that manufactured the original polio vaccine shipped the live virus - ie, we just injected kids with polio. Low double digits of people (kids?) died, a few hundred were paralyzed, etc. Later vaccines also had the same problem, but at very low rates (1 in millions maybe).
    - SideburnsOfDoom 1mo ago
      Yes, but it still ended the polio epidemic resulting in a drastic drop in total polio-related deaths. You don't get vaccines in use for 50 years without vaccines in use for 1 year, and you don't get that without using them for 6 months, and you can say the same about COVID-19 vaccination. Arguing otherwise is just failing to understand linear time. There can be understanding, but nothing really beats mass numbers of doses over multiple years to generate it. The safety factors of a vaccine become better understood over time and use, and you can say the same about COVID-19 vaccination. You should conclude that COVID-19 vaccination - even the early versions - had net very good outcomes too, unless you're a wilfully ignorant conspiracy theorist. The bar isn't "perfect vaccine", the bar is "significantly better than no vaccine". And this depends on the urgency of the situation. The only "debacle" is a political/sentiment one, the mainstreaming of crankery, especially in the USA. It's now a full-fledged systemic public health anti-vax debacle. But MRNA vaccines are a significant new medical tool, not just for COVID-19, not just for viral diseases.
hgoel 1mo ago
My belief is that for most of those people, no amount of evidence would have ever been enough. The entire "I looked at the data and found it insufficient" thing is by and large cover for people that lack the tools to evaluate the data. They play that card so they can pretend that they're actually intelligent skeptical adults and not easily manipulated idiots or malicious grifters. They're the equivalent of a random person that hasn't done algebra in 20 years emailing a physicist at CERN about how they've discovered a perpetual motion machine.
- gadders 1mo ago
  "It was developed in the last 6 months" and "It was developed 50 years ago and millions of people around the world have used it with no ill effects" doesn't really require a degree in biochemistry to evaluate the possible risks.
  - hgoel 1mo ago
    Telling that the millions of people that have used the Covid vaccines without issue never come into that conversation. Instead those supposedly literate people pull out percentages so blatantly incorrect that any attempt to convince them turns into evidence for the validity of "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience". You see this all the time on social media, with the most recent version being rabid antivaxxers pretending that 80% of to be mothers that got the vaccine had miscarriages.

gadders 1mo ago

Yeah. People are lumping all vaccines together in an attempt to boost the credibility of the COVID vaccine. Unfortunately what it is actually doing is ruining the credibility of all the other vaccines that have been around for years and are well understood.

antonyt 1mo ago
Were all the other vaccines "well understood" when they were initially rolled out en masse? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don't know the history. I don't really understand what people's expectations were for a new vaccine intended to combat an ongoing global pandemic.
- gadders 1mo ago
  I don't think they were developed in less than 6 months, and probably had more testing (and have had far more since).
- kansface 1mo ago
  Several labs that manufactured the original polio vaccine shipped the live virus - ie, we just injected kids with polio. Low double digits of people (kids?) died, a few hundred were paralyzed, etc. Later vaccines also had the same problem, but at very low rates (1 in millions maybe).
  - SideburnsOfDoom 1mo ago
    Yes, but it still ended the polio epidemic resulting in a drastic drop in total polio-related deaths. You don't get vaccines in use for 50 years without vaccines in use for 1 year, and you don't get that without using them for 6 months, and you can say the same about COVID-19 vaccination. Arguing otherwise is just failing to understand linear time. There can be understanding, but nothing really beats mass numbers of doses over multiple years to generate it. The safety factors of a vaccine become better understood over time and use, and you can say the same about COVID-19 vaccination. You should conclude that COVID-19 vaccination - even the early versions - had net very good outcomes too, unless you're a wilfully ignorant conspiracy theorist. The bar isn't "perfect vaccine", the bar is "significantly better than no vaccine". And this depends on the urgency of the situation. The only "debacle" is a political/sentiment one, the mainstreaming of crankery, especially in the USA. It's now a full-fledged systemic public health anti-vax debacle. But MRNA vaccines are a significant new medical tool, not just for COVID-19, not just for viral diseases.

hgoel 1mo ago

My belief is that for most of those people, no amount of evidence would have ever been enough. The entire "I looked at the data and found it insufficient" thing is by and large cover for people that lack the tools to evaluate the data. They play that card so they can pretend that they're actually intelligent skeptical adults and not easily manipulated idiots or malicious grifters. They're the equivalent of a random person that hasn't done algebra in 20 years emailing a physicist at CERN about how they've discovered a perpetual motion machine.

gadders 1mo ago
"It was developed in the last 6 months" and "It was developed 50 years ago and millions of people around the world have used it with no ill effects" doesn't really require a degree in biochemistry to evaluate the possible risks.
- hgoel 1mo ago
  Telling that the millions of people that have used the Covid vaccines without issue never come into that conversation. Instead those supposedly literate people pull out percentages so blatantly incorrect that any attempt to convince them turns into evidence for the validity of "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience". You see this all the time on social media, with the most recent version being rabid antivaxxers pretending that 80% of to be mothers that got the vaccine had miscarriages.