Oddbean

The problem is with “a lot of people”. This means nothing. If tour sample size is 1000 people and 50 drop dead that’s a big deal. But if your sample is a million people then 50 doesn’t sound all that uncommon. Same number, different percentage. Terrible that anyone dies? Yes. But something to be terrified about? Probably not.

Yeah, I would however say a lot of people have reported negative health affects but not death, you also have to consider why would a government push and fund it so much? We already know they don't like us. It's a difficult situation and hard to to know I guess.

Statistics, and the impact of significance levels, normally distributed sample sizes, sampling method, and qualitative vs quantitative data are frequently ignored/overlooked/misunderstood. Then sensationalism takes over.

I think this was the case with Covid vax adverse effects. I looked at one of the big studies and the numbers were not nearly as bad as some armchair experts made them out to be on Twitter. They didn’t understand what they were reading 🤦‍♂️ I’m not for or against anything, but I do like to look at data.

Yep, same here. Stuff was often cherry picked/skewed to fit a narrative - from both sides too. I’m not going to dwell on it though. Entered too many heated debates over the last 4 years with armchair experts with zero data/ scientific backgrounds.

What's different with COVID vaccine is that hundreds of millions have been vaccinated, so obviously even if the percentage of side effects is tiny, many many individuals will be affected. Many of the statistically less competent people are picking those numbers to show us how terribly the government acted. They leave aside the optionality: how many more people would have died or would have had serious side effects from the disease if the vaccine hadn't been rolled out? There is little rigor applied except for the rigorous calls against government intervention (which I support in general).