Thread by @ErrataRob

Time for my Sunday long tweet stream rant. I apologize in advance.

The term #covidiots is trending. It's a great example of social-media toxicity that polarizes society.

"Facts, data, science, reason" are not on your side if you don't use them. And I don't see people use them on social-media.

https://twitter.com/FozzieBear88/status/1416743954050019331

Take "unknown long term effects". How would you answer this concern using "facts, data, science, reason"?

You actually can, which I'll do here in the following tweets.

https://twitter.com/AliciaSmith987/status/1416681310836375555

We do have ways of estimating risk, with math. Take those "blood clot" issues. We know if you drive a car to get your vaccine, the chances of a car accident are greater than the chance of the vaccine causing a blood clot.

In case you miss the point of the pics attached to the previous tweet, that's 7-per-million chance of car accident vs. 4-per-million chance of blood clot when you drive to get a vaccine.

Long-term effects are predicted by short-term effects. We've given over 3 billion injections in the last 12 months. Anything that could become a large long term problem, like liver issues, should have shown up as small problems in the short term.

Moreover, statistics tells us that if you don't vaccinated, then you are overwhelmingly likely to get infected -- eventually (maybe years from now). It's likely to be a mild or even asymptomatic infection, where your immune system fights if off before any major symptoms.

But even an asymptomatic infection causes organ damage and a flood of "spike proteins" in your body, orders of magnitude more than either vaccine.

And, because of the point above, we know that there are huge long-term problems that will result from even mild cases: "long covid".

Yes, those with good immune systems will quickly fight off the covid, especially in young people.

But data from short-term consequences leads us to believe this will result in long-term effects.

Example: because you didn't vaccinate your 12-year-old today means that in 4 years they get a mild covid infection, and when they reach the age of 50, they have to cart around an oxygen tank with tubes up their nose because of long-term lung damage. That's what math tells us.

Just to be clear: your choice isn't long term effects of "vaccine" compared to "no vaccine". It's "vaccine" compared to "infection".

And the science is clear: even asymptomatic infections are worse than the vaccine in every way.

Both the mRNA and adenovirus vaccines are not "new". Each has more than 20 years of research behind it. At this point, they are no more "experimental" than most other medications. Just like all science is a "theory" (e.g. theory of gravity), all medicine is "experimental".

Sure, they are not "FDA approved", but that's a bureaucratic designation, not a scientific one. Scientifically, both the mRNA and adenovirus vaccines are better understood than half of "FDA approved" medications, especially after 3 billion doses.

Thus, because of science, we know that vaccines are overwhelmingly in your best interest. They are in your child's best interest. Yes, yes, a healthy child is unlikely to get more than a mild infection. But the long term risks of that mild infection is worse than a vaccine.

My tweets above won't convince hard core anti-vaxxers, of course. But it's not about them. It's about me. I'm willing to use science and data. I showed blood clot data, for example.

It's profound how bad both sides are at using science and data. Take for example this tweet. It ignores the data in order to further politics.

https://twitter.com/AliciaSmith987/status/1416685204660436992

Bullying an extra 10 million US citizen into getting vaccinated will not help nearly as much as getting 4 billion extra people vaccinated outside the US.

The Delta variant came from India, for example.

It means more foreign aid, not more bullying.

This tweet fails the "logic and reason" test, because it works both ways. Just like that, Democrats become anti-choice. I mean, I agree Republicans are hypocrites, it's just that Democrats are, too.

https://twitter.com/KatieJohnson214/status/1416727558004035585

The point of this thread is that if you claim "science, logic, data" is on your side, you have to use them. Saying "because the CDC says so" is not a substitute, that's just "appeal to authority". It's like saying "god" is on your side: god obvious overrules the CDC.