be honest, how many boosters have you gotten? 10?

Those 20 others stop infection and spread and don't wear off after 5 weeks.

That has a lot to do with why many people don't trust the COVID vaccines now. They were sold as being similar to something like a measles vaccine, instead of a flu shot. Also, at one time it was considered some kind of a bad thing to compare COVID to the seasonal flu, turns out there are a lot of similarities.

Sure, it was oversold. It's a shame that so many people aren't able to see that clearly there's some learning on the fly going on, so not everything will be perfect. But here we are.

FYP, because I don't think it was a great comparison for at least the first year.

I can't swear it wasn't presented that way where you heard it, but I don't remember it ever being presented as similar to the measles. I definitely heard a lot of speculation, even before the first vaccines were given to regular folks, that you might need one every year, similar to the flu shots.

I also don't remember any guarantees that it would eradicate covid and I remember plenty of talk about why a vaccine for this kind of virus is difficult (it mutates so often). To be fair, I don't think the caveats were communicated in press conferences.

They were absolutely not "sold" like this and the reason people are skeptical has nothing to do with that and everything to do with a deranged right-wing media that's been feeding people bullshit.

I don't remember anyone saying that a COVID shot would provide lifelong immunity like a measles vaccine. That was never my understanding, even before the vaccines were available.

IMO, people are skeptical mainly for three reasons. First, the government oversold the ability of vaccines to prevent infection. Reduced severity seems to be the major benefit. Second, the overall government messaging on COVID, especially w/r/t masks and the risk of outdoor transmission, was inconsistent. That was partly due to evolving understanding and panic, but whatever the reason, inconsistent messaging tends to make people skeptical and stokes urges to "do your own research." Third, the derposphere and CTs wildly oversold the risks and side effects of vaccines.

I am not sure you should be using the past tense when pointing out govt messaging and policy being inconsistent. For example, the US govt requires proof of vaccination/booster to legally travel to the US which itself is insanity at this point in the pandemic, but not on top of this thousands of migrants (including school aged children) are crossing the border/day and applying for asylum (or whatever) with no requirement of any vaccinations, much less Covid.**

With this kind of wild inconsistency why in the world would anyone trust the govt?

**As much as the media likes to make a deal about a small minority of native "anti-vax" parents, this is actually the main reason so many childhood diseases we actually have effective vaccines for are making a resurgence.

Anyone who trusts the U.S. Government on almost ANYTHING is either ignorant or a fool in my humble opinion.

It's not inconsistent to recognize that the world as a complex place where you often have multiple competing interests in any decision you make.

it absolutely was presented as such. get 90% of the population vaxxed and develop herd immunity. that was a large rationale for requiring younger and low risk people to be jabbed.

for a long time it was "anti-vaxx" to even speculate that maybe the vaccine is not preventing infection as much as promised.

Herd immunity can lead to eradication but they're not the same thing. I do think you're right in the sense that this distinction could have been better clarified. I also agree with your second paragraph. There was definitely a lot of social pressure, at least online, to not question anything. People had to preface anything that wasn't clearly supportive with, "I'm vaccinated but...".

Edit: Doing a quick search of old news articles I came across something. Seems some of us have faulty memory after all:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...or-early-april

My recollection varies. It was very much proposed on the same lines as flu jabs, with a degree of immunity for a period measured in months, and has been carried out that way because it is known that coronaviruses mutate rapidly. We seem to be fortunate that Covid-19 has mutated to be largely non-fatal. The 1918 horror is believed to have gone extinct because it killed its hosts faster than it could find new ones, which is a bit of a mistake for a virus to make if it looks forward to a long and flourishing career as an extant organism.

Solve for the distress of nations with perplexity.

I posted the following on February 12, 2021, which was around the time the vaccine was becoming available. I'm virtually certain that I was repeating the conventional wisdom at the time.

And here is an article from WebMD in May 2020, long before vaccines were available, speculating that COVID vaccines would probably be an annual thing.

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid...y-be-necessary

I don't know where you all are getting the idea that we were being sold the idea that the vaccine would eradicate COVID.

I just remember bc Trolly really really really wanted to ban people for this stuff. he even succeeded sometimes.

another part I remember is that we were told we could stop wearing a mask after getting vaxxed bc it provided enough prevention. many people got super made that others werent getting vaxxed bc they wanted to go maskless.

mask still remains the best way to prevent Covid.

which reminds me that at the beginning of the pandemic the gov said that masks were not helpful. then they were like, oh wait, we were lying bc we didnt have enough PPE for drs so we tricked yall. but trust us now.

Not sure where you heard this bit of nonsense. Not from CDC, NIH, WHO etc.

I moved C19 discussion out of In Other News

the CDC absolutely said we could stop wearing masks if vaxxed. and then when delta hit they recommended masking again.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dr...-gop-criticism

The only thing I would push back on here is the last paragraph. That may have been the case but we don't know that. It's at least as reasonable to believe that it was an evolving situation with a novel virus and they made mistakes along the way.

It's documented in interviews and emails.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07...cdc-masks.html

its ludicrous if he actually thought masks were not helpful. dude is supposed to be the top decision maker for infectious disease and he initially thought masks dont work? I like the cynical version better jfc.

Thanks for that. I have to admit I'm a bit torn on the strategy. It probably helps the current pandemic in the beginning but undermines trust for when the next one comes around. On the other hand, had panic buying ensued, like it did with toilet paper it might have been catastrophic for hospitals and retirement homes. Do you go with undermining long term trust to save lives in the present or be completely honest and fail your mandate. Seems like a tough choice.

WW(cfw)D