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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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If one remembers initial promises about the vaccines, they were actually quite modest, in line to what we now know the vaccine does (ie. not that much).

Strong disagree, as outlined in this post.

The specificized success criterion was preventing infection. The stated effect was preventing infection. Anyone that now tells you that the scientists were only testing whether it made individuals less likely to die is badly misinformed or is telling a whopper.

Underlined. I was wrong on this one. They didn't study "transmission", because stopping transmission would be unnecessary if the vaccine stopped infection.

I think Stefferi is right if he is talking about expectations for the vaccine before the first trial results were released. Especially focusing on scientific expectations, not the partisan "If Trump release a vaccine before the election it'll be rat poison".

Sure, fair enough. That was the consensus among immunologists I was chatting as early as March of 2020, from my recollection of in person conversations, that if we want something quick, that's feasible, but that it isn't likely to work all that well and that the tradeoffs on safety for rushing are probably not great. All in all, I don't think Covid or the vaccines really brought anything that was very scientifically surprising, but publicly broadcast narratives were far enough from actual science that people kept being surprised.

Yes, I'm talking about the very first chatter there was on the vaccine, ie. some months after March 2020. I didn't quite get /u/WalterOdim's point about FDA, and by Dec 2020 the hype cycle was already running hard.

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