8 ms·

> Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. Isn't this kinda like saying medicating yo

> Vaccinating your children in general is very much the right thing to do, both for them and for anyone around them. Isn't this kinda like saying medicating your children in general is very much the right thing to do? Like it's obviously one of those things that everyone expects you to just agree with directionally, but the actually correct answer is no, there is no in general. All drugs have a context where they make sense. E.g. you're probably not vaccinating your kids for rabies, unless you live in an animal sanctuary or something. MMR, sure. It actually seems pretty questionable to me that it was ever a net benefit to your average young kid to get the covid shots.

estearum 28d ago
No there actually is in general and it's the same exact way in which there's generally good guidance for medicating your children: they're called evidence-backed guidelines. The contexts in which drugs make sense is captured by the clinical guidelines. And sure, it is arguably questionable whether there was ever a net benefit to an average young kid to get a COVID vaccine. However that is a distinct claim from "it never made sense to give kids COVID vaccines." There was certainly a point in time in which a logical interpretation of the information available at the time indicated that kids should get vaccinated. The risks were (correctly) understood to be near-zero and the benefits were (arguably incorrectly) understood to be significant. Someone who, in early 2021, decided against vaccinating their children was making a decision that was not indicated by the best-available information at that time. Someone who bets on Red doesn't get to claim they were "correct" in betting on Red even if Red comes up, and certainly not if Green comes up (arguably neutral outcome).
- ifyoubuildit 28d ago
  This is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument. It works in a world where you have trustworthy institutions and its safe to just outsource your decision-making to the authorities. Your interpretation of events might be that a collective of all well meaning people just got it wrong, and that's your right. A lot of people ended up with different conclusions, like the machine did what it does and made a lot of money, the truth be damned.
  - estearum 27d ago
    Not really. It's the "making decisions based on best-available evidence is good, even if every once in a while it leads you astray." You're more than welcome to read the evidence they use to create their policies. If you have evidence that is of higher quality than that which "the authorities" are using, then you should depend on that! But... you almost certainly don't have higher quality evidence than they do. That's the fundamental problem. If you think that you do, then you too could actually make a fuckton of money with that information. But again: you don't have superior information. I don't think people even got it wrong. They got it correct with the information available, and they for the most part got it right even in retrospect.
    - ifyoubuildit 27d ago
      I did read a lot of evidence available at the time. It's why I opted to skip the vaccine for myself given that I had already recovered shortly before the shots were available. That decision was very at odds with authoritative guidance at the time. You'd think I was a damn leper, yet that decision seems to have held up pretty well. I also frequently tested before any gatherings, and avoided contact when I had any kinds of symptoms, test or not. I saw plenty of people figure they had gotten the shots so why not go out with the sniffles? "Best information" and what was blasted out of the TV or considered "common sense" at the time I think have quite a bit of daylight between them.
      - estearum 27d ago
        That's just not true. Here's the authoritative guidance on the rollout: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf What gives you the idea that a low-risk person opting not to get the vaccine is "at odds with authoritative guidance?" Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. Not sure that can be pinned on public health authorities. People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. Here's the guidance on whether vaccinated people with sniffles should go out in public: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 Answer: no. Go get tested, and if positive, don't gather. Yes, agreed that people were listening primarily to a game of telephone and vibes and not actually reading any of the linked PDFs or listening to the actual words spoken by actual public health officials firsthand, and then they (like you are now) were confused about what the actual guidance said.

estearum 28d ago

No there actually is in general and it's the same exact way in which there's generally good guidance for medicating your children: they're called evidence-backed guidelines. The contexts in which drugs make sense is captured by the clinical guidelines. And sure, it is arguably questionable whether there was ever a net benefit to an average young kid to get a COVID vaccine. However that is a distinct claim from "it never made sense to give kids COVID vaccines." There was certainly a point in time in which a logical interpretation of the information available at the time indicated that kids should get vaccinated. The risks were (correctly) understood to be near-zero and the benefits were (arguably incorrectly) understood to be significant. Someone who, in early 2021, decided against vaccinating their children was making a decision that was not indicated by the best-available information at that time. Someone who bets on Red doesn't get to claim they were "correct" in betting on Red even if Red comes up, and certainly not if Green comes up (arguably neutral outcome).

ifyoubuildit 28d ago
This is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument. It works in a world where you have trustworthy institutions and its safe to just outsource your decision-making to the authorities. Your interpretation of events might be that a collective of all well meaning people just got it wrong, and that's your right. A lot of people ended up with different conclusions, like the machine did what it does and made a lot of money, the truth be damned.
- estearum 27d ago
  Not really. It's the "making decisions based on best-available evidence is good, even if every once in a while it leads you astray." You're more than welcome to read the evidence they use to create their policies. If you have evidence that is of higher quality than that which "the authorities" are using, then you should depend on that! But... you almost certainly don't have higher quality evidence than they do. That's the fundamental problem. If you think that you do, then you too could actually make a fuckton of money with that information. But again: you don't have superior information. I don't think people even got it wrong. They got it correct with the information available, and they for the most part got it right even in retrospect.
  - ifyoubuildit 27d ago
    I did read a lot of evidence available at the time. It's why I opted to skip the vaccine for myself given that I had already recovered shortly before the shots were available. That decision was very at odds with authoritative guidance at the time. You'd think I was a damn leper, yet that decision seems to have held up pretty well. I also frequently tested before any gatherings, and avoided contact when I had any kinds of symptoms, test or not. I saw plenty of people figure they had gotten the shots so why not go out with the sniffles? "Best information" and what was blasted out of the TV or considered "common sense" at the time I think have quite a bit of daylight between them.
    - estearum 27d ago
      That's just not true. Here's the authoritative guidance on the rollout: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf What gives you the idea that a low-risk person opting not to get the vaccine is "at odds with authoritative guidance?" Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. Not sure that can be pinned on public health authorities. People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. Here's the guidance on whether vaccinated people with sniffles should go out in public: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 Answer: no. Go get tested, and if positive, don't gather. Yes, agreed that people were listening primarily to a game of telephone and vibes and not actually reading any of the linked PDFs or listening to the actual words spoken by actual public health officials firsthand, and then they (like you are now) were confused about what the actual guidance said.