Good luck with the truck.

Let’s get real.

You and your kids are driving 80 mph on a highway, when a truck suddenly veers in front of you.  Since you are a quick-thinking insurance person, you estimate your chance of dying if you hit that truck at about 40 percent – just a bit better than even odds.

Or, you can swerve off the road – where your chance of dying is 1 percent – about 1 in 100.

This…

Or this…

What do you do?

That’s the question facing vaccine skeptics.

Vaccine skepticism is driven by memes, misunderstood data, a lack of understanding of basic math, pure laziness, demagoguing, and social media’s incredible ability to publicize nonsense.

Recently I had an electronic conversation where a COVID vaccine skeptic (my characterization, not their’s) cited “publications and VAERS” as sources for their concerns…I don’t know what publications the commenter was referring to; the only reference provided was a 14-month old TV report.

[reminder – if you discuss or debate, provide credible sources – ideally primary source – for your opinions.  Do your homework and don’t be lazy.  If you spout unsupported opinions – looking at you TJ – be prepared to be skewered.]

Leaving that aside, let’s talk VAERS, the vaccine reporting service run by the CDC and FDA. VAERS accepts reports from providers, vaccine recipients (or those who say they had a vaccine, parents, and “others” of any adverse event regardless of proof that it was caused by the vaccine. And VAERS reports can show deaths due to ANY CAUSE – could be drunk driving, hang gliding, heart attack, cancer, whatever.

Want proof ?A few years back VAERS accepted a report of a doc who felt like he was becoming the Incredible Hulk after a vaccination.  

VAERS is often misrepresented by Vaccine Skeptics lying about “problems” and deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine. [Here’s a great review of VAERS reporting issues]

Ok, the data.

VAERS received 4,178 reports of deaths (0.0017% of all who received the vaccine) between Dec. 14, 2020 and May 3, 2021. Remember about 165 million of us have had at least one shot. [source above]

Even if ALL 4,178 deaths were “caused” by a vaccine – and there is ZERO evidence that’s the case –  reality is your chance of dying from a COVID vaccine is far less than getting struck by lightning.

Compare that to your chance of dying from COVID – I ran the numbers here for a 55 year old white man from zip code 92111 with no pre-ex. The risk is .07 percent.

This person is 40 times MORE LIKELY TO DIE OF COVID than from an “adverse event” after you get a Covid vaccine.

What does this mean for you?

Science always wins…or, put another way,

Good luck with the truck.