Since the vaccine only protects from severe disease, hospitalization, and death, I'm a bit concerned about the #covid19 symptom of loss/distortion of sense of taste & smell, which some people lost over 1 year ago and still haven't recovered. Is that still a high risk even to vaccinated people?
@resist1984 it protects you from the disease, and thus from all of its symptoms. Why would it not be the case?
I think it in this case it seems more prevalent because of the survivor bias... literally
@Santral the 100% efficacy rate is only w.r.t preventing death. Consider J&J, which is "66% effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19". I'm not sure where loss of taste/smell is in their scale, but the high 80%+ efficacy figures are for hospitalization prevention.
@resist1984 interesting! I thought it prevented everything, but what you ask is currently an open question.
@resist1984 This is a good question. I'm more concerned about the reports of "brain fog" and trouble breathing a year after recovery. Nevertheless, if the vaccine can prevent severe disease and/or shorten the length of infection, then the chances of these complications are greatly reduced. Also, the main point of these vaccines is to reduce the spread of the virus so you never catch it in the first place.
@imgn once vaccinated I can still carry & transmit the virus, so i'll keep wearing the mask. But I thought there might be some low-risk situations where I'd forgo the mask, knowing that i'm willing to put up with some symptoms if it gets transmitted to me. OTOH taste/smell modification is a big quality of life hit if it lasts years, in which case i'd be more diligent to wear a mask.
@imgn there are also cases where the sense of smell isn't lost, but rather modified so for example an orange smells like rotting flesh or feces. My search is coming up dry on that though, so maybe these are rare enough symptoms to be negligable.
@resist1984 Yeah, I'll keep wearing a mask and social distancing until the number of cases has returned to pre-pandemic levels (which could take a year, I hear).
By the way, I haven't looked at all the data from the clinical trials yet, but I bet they recorded all the symptoms from the participants, including loss/distortion of smell if that occurred.
@resist1984 think of it this way.
You could get a vaccine they rammed through tests at lightning speed in 9 months and of course claiming it's safe even though the last vaccine took TEN YEARS to develop safely. It's so safe in fact that the Zuckertit was caught in leaked documents talking to the WHO fearing what it might do to DNA. OR you could just not take it and there's a 99% chance you'll be fine even if you do get it.
🙃
@Wetrix
All the normal vaccine test protocols seem to have been followed, and all phases completed. Are you aware of any specific risky shortcuts that were taken?
It seems that the only risks taken were financial ones, with governments throwing money to manufacture doses before tests were finished, and the regulatory decision to run the phases close together rather than widely spaced only @resist1984 - 1/2
potentially risked test volunteers. But financial and scheduling risks won't cause medical problems for the vaccination programme, AFAIK.
@resist1984 @Wetrix - 2/2
@resist1984 Hi! As far as I've read, modified taste is not even in the 'expected symptoms' list, so I wouldn't worry. I got astra zeneca and all symptoms vanished after two days, same holds for everyone I know. Same goes for Pfizer.
I would expect the same from the others, but can't guarantee anything there.