This will never happen, which is unfortunate. As the ones who would have to debate and put this to law and order would be the very people who spend their lives doing it for a living!
There is a difference between scientific debate and deliberate spread of provably false information.
If the vaccines work, and do its job then why would anybody who has had the vaccine be worried about any person who hasn’t been vaccinated?
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccines work.
We can add not waiting for a bus I to this as well.
How many understand the chemical composition of the air they breath waiting for the X57 into town? Which at least has some robust evidence around it.
No vaccine for Covid is 100% whether that protection against death or serious illness. The results from trials and studies of vaccinated populations are freely available. Very surprised you would even think the risk would be zero for a subject matter you have an interest in.
Absolutely agree, so at what percentage wise are you thinking the covid vaccine does it's intented job? And at what percentage of success rate would be acceptable enough to warrant taking the vaccine?
If for example it's 80% effective.. and you have the vaccine and I don't. There would be around the 20 percentage chance I could give you covid right? (If I had it & coughed at you)
But let's say we both had the vaccine, ok? So now we're both at around 80% protected against each other and you are happy I'm vaccinated. Let's just say for example I coughed at you now remembering we both have our vaccines.. there is still a 20 percent chance I could give you covid 😂 your effectiveness doesn't increase just because someone else has been vaccinated or not, the only change is the the vaccinated person/s have an 80% effective vaccine the same as you, instead of the 0
But in our example if we still both had our vaccines we still are 20 percent vulnerable and in your viewpoint we both could catch covid and die from it. So my question is, what's the bloody point?
And to quote your agreement of no vaccine being 100% effective. why bother going outside at all if you vaccinated people are worried so much about catching it? You could still all catch it from each other being vaccinated people in your own pubs and other venues. So it makes absolutely no sense who you come in contact with there is still going to be a risk.
How many understand the chemical composition of the air they breath waiting for the X57 into town? Which at least has some robust evidence around it.
What's that got to do with anything? we need to breathe to survive.. there isn't any other option. But there is an option to not get the vaccine even if the result is death from catching it, bit that's still a choice.
But if you really want to go deep and silly about it, I could say I want all you motor vehicle drivers banned because you are affecting my air pollution..
your effectiveness doesn’t increase just because someone else has been vaccinated or not
It absolutely does increase. You have not accounted for (actually you appear to purposely disregard this) the reduced probability of getting it in the first place. That is one of the most fundamental elements of vaccinating when choosing to vaccinate a population.
But in our example if we still both had our vaccines we still are 20 percent vulnerable and in your viewpoint we both could catch covid and die from it. So my question is, what’s the bloody point?
Same again. By reducing the chances of being exposed in the first place. The more of the population that has protection the risks decline.
You appear to be viewing this through 100% prevalence calculations.
why bother going outside at all if you vaccinated people are worried so much about catching it?
I see this quite often. Its nonsense.
Sorry bliss - I was on a work call
Just two examples, and I don’t even want to know the detailed answers. Do you know the chemical make up of the covid vaccines? And also the flu vaccines? Because I am in agreement on the view that of people don’t know what’s in a vaccine, why on earth are they having them? I do not know the chemical make up of any vaccines and I’m pretty sure 99% of society doesn’t either.. including doctors.
Do I personally know? No I don't.
However (and I don't want to sound snarky here - absolutely not my intention), I also don't know what's in most of the food I eat, the toothpaste I use, or even the lemsip I just had because I've got a cold. I don't know exactly how wifi works, but I still use it.
Taking this line of reasoning one step further: I also know that most oncologists don't know the exact chemical makeup of the chemotherapy that they give to their cancer patients - you can apply that to almost any field of medicine. Do you understand the effect of x-rays on the body? Or when you have one do you read the leaflet that they give you explaining what the risk is, accept what it says, and have the x-ray.
The reason for this is that modern medicine is extremely complex, and it takes literally a lifetime of study and experience to be an expert in a particular area. The system is engineered so that the experts (many of them) are determining whether something is safe/effective for people to take/doctors to prescribe. We don't ask the individual prescribing doctors or (as you are suggesting) the individual patients to understand a lifetimes worth of vaccines development experience before they get their measles vaccination.
I can understand your position as a general principle - that you shouldn't eat something/put something in your body without knowing what it is..... I think we all learned this when Jamie Oliver made turkey twizzlers on telly back in 2001 (or whenever). However, adopting this approach when it comes to Medicine pretty much means that you are never going to take any drugs other than penicillin, aspirin or codeine.
If you get through life achieving that - I will congratulate you.
Here we are - a new virus is killing a lot of people (two people in my own extended family). Its also spreading much faster that the previous variant. The evidence is abundant and very, very clear: The vaccines are effective (but not perfect) at protecting you against serious illness and death.
So let me ask you this: What information would you like about the vaccine in order to feel comfortable getting it? This is not a rhetorical question - what do you want to know?
1) It's all about trust.
You don't know what's in the food you eat, but you still trust the producers enough to eat it
You know (or should know) that there is a slim chance there's E.Coli on the lettuce you eat, but you trust that it's a tiny risk and you need to eat.
You presumably get into a car that could fail and kill you, but you trust that the mechanic who serviced or built it did a good job. Likewise planes.
Society operates on trust, it has to. I don't know what's in the vaccine, and even if I did I wouldn't understand the consequences of those ingredients. However there are people who do, and I trust them and the process they are part of. Why do I trust them? Because like most people, probably including you, I have taken many pharmaceutical drugs in my life for important reasons. And each time I trusted the system that produced them. These drugs have made society healthier and longer lived (despite ourselves) and I see no reason why this vaccine is any different to all the other vaccines that have stamped out or controlled serious diseases.
Your argument of 'I don't know what's in it' just doesn't stack up. I would suggest the real reason you don't want to take it is something else. You may not even understand this yourself.
2) Are you happy to endanger other people?
I didn't want to take the vaccine. The idea made me uncomfortable. But I knew I had to, for the greater good. Without the vaccine, many more people would die and the pandemic would possibly never end. This would be even more of a disaster than it already is. So I stepped up and did the right thing, because my baseline stance is to care about other people. There are vulnerable people who can't take the vaccine. Their lives depend on us taking it.
There is strong precedent for this in society. We accept lmany limitations on our lives. My car does 150mph, do you think I should be allowed to drive it that fast? Clearly not, it's dangerous. The same goes for many other things that I'm not allowed to do. These rules are necessary to protect the general public and most of us accept this and see how it is common sense. Similarly, the vaccine is needed to protect the general public.
Do your bit.
why would anybody who has had the vaccine be worried about any person who hasn’t been vaccinated?
1. Children have not been vaccinated. I don't appreciate people putting my child, or anyone else's child, through ignorance.
2. Vaccines work by preparing your immune system for encounters with the live virus. They don't stop you getting an infection, they prepare your body to fight it so it is much less serious if you do get infected. Vaccinated people are at much lower risk, but vaccines don't make you invulnerable. On top of that, viruses mutate constantly. With a large unvaccinated population, the number of infections and rate of mutation will be higher. Newer variants will eventually evolve that are more resistant to the current vaccines, so updated vaccines will be needed. That doesn't mean the vaccines aren't working, it's a reflection of how they work.
Re the vaccine efficacy, it's about maths. It dramatically reduces the chances of catching the virus, which means you are then far less likely to pass it on. This reduces the R number below 1.0 which means the pandemic will go away (although the disease won't go away completely).
The more unvaccinated people there are, the more the virus will continue to circulate and kill people.
I can understand most the the arguments, even though I don't agree with them personally.
I will absolutely not comply with any advice a tyranny government gives me.
What other rules and guidance imposed by governments in the interests of public safety do you disagree with and refuse to follow? Accepting that this is the most incompetent and corrupt UK government since maybe Georgian times?
And have you personally lost a close friend or family to Covid? That removed any doubts I may have had about the need for mass vaccination, when it took people I knew in Wave 2.
I will absolutely not comply with any advice a tyranny government gives me
So, you drive on any side of the road, at any speed you choose, and completely ignore things like stop signs? I’m guessing not.
This is the problem with ‘antis’ they are only ‘anti’ some things that they choose.
If you really don’t trust the government, then you absolutely must ignore any and all instructions from them.
So, you drive on any side of the road, at any speed you choose, and completely ignore things like stop signs?
Audi drivers.....makes you think eh?
@bliss,if you were travelling abroad to Africa for example would you have typhoid and yellow fever jabs, take malaria tablets or would you risk it?
So @bliss ...what would you do if you caught Covid, and ended up seriously ill in hospital? Would you refuse any drugs the doctors could use to save your life because you don't know what's in them?
I suspect he may be safe under his bridge.
@bliss As an MTB'er especially, I hope your tetanus is upto date. Even a sedately gardener needs them.
Have you had that jab or do you never cut yourself on dirty ground ?
Mate of mine refused to have it, fit and healthy 50 year old, postman. Walks miles.
Damn nearly killed him recently, high dependency unit. I've not seen him back on his rounds since catching it. It's a lottery. He was fit and healthy.
Guess what, he now want's the jab, but can't have it just yet.
Mate of mine refused to have it, fit and healthy 50 year old, postman. Walks miles.
Damn nearly killed him recently, high dependency unit.
Sadly, the internet seems to be filled with stories like that, many ending in death. If people want to risk their own lives, that's up to them, but why should they be given a hospital bed when it's down to their own stupidity?
I suspect he may be safe under his bridge.
this
but why should they be given a hospital bed when it’s down to their own stupidity?
It's a little unfair to class everyone in this position as "stupid". People have been misled or have been swamped with information good and bad and been unduly influenced by the bad. I know erudite STWers rely on fact checking, trusted sources, critical thinking etc. but vast swathes of the population get their 'news' from mates, facebook and youtube. Places where any opinion or idea no matter how ridiculous can get a platform and gain traction.
We have to watch the 'stupidity' thing - we ride bikes you know !
but why should they be given a hospital bed when it’s down to their own stupidity?
Because we live in a society that looks after people regardless of who or what they're doing or are. Otherwise it's a tricky road to start down.
Sadly, the internet seems to be filled with stories like that, many ending in death. If people want to risk their own lives, that’s up to them, but why should they be given a hospital bed when it’s down to their own stupidity?
There will be, and they will be the highly visible cases of regret. But the majority of the anti-vaxers are going to be saved from their own mouthbreathing incompetence by the majority who have taken the vaccine reducing the possibility of the unvaccinated coming into contact with high viral load strangers. There will be a lot of crowing anti-vaxxer 'I told you so's unable to comprehend that is was the acts of others that got them through this safe (medically and economically) despite their choice.
I think everyone with some concept of what a vaccine is will appreciate there is a small risk attached to taking it as there is with any medication. That's indisputable. But most people are competent enough to put that into context and appreciate the broader benefits to both themselves AND SOCIETY AT LARGE of them taking it.
Longer term when this is over (or normalised and minimised by annual vaccination of the vast majority) I truly would rather not have an anti vaxxer anywhere in my life. To me it is evidence of one of two things - either a pretty poor intellect (or I guess a mental illness that fantalises to a degree that makes them too hard to be around) or a supremely selfish, self-serving sociopathic personality type that is prepared to let others do the (small) risk taking to their personal benefit or the benefit of the most vulnerable. Either way it marks them out to me at least as wasters to be pushed out of my life. Not because of their potential to infect me and mine but because what their stance says about them as a human being.
Yes, a very tricky road. I am not going to treat you because of your stupid diet choices, I am not going to treat you because you stupidly tried to jump a bike and crashed etc,.
Because we live in a society that looks after people regardless of who or what they’re doing or are. Otherwise it’s a tricky road to start down.
The logical extension is that cyclists, climbers etc who get hurt shouldn't be treated either, they agreed to take the risk etc.
It would be a very nasty society where your right to get treatment from the NHS which you have funded through your taxes (even if they aren't enough) is rationed due to someone deciding that your actions are "stupid "
Figures quoting 2m with long Covid in the UK. Many folk on here have it. That's something you want to avoid, never mind being rather ill for a couple of weeks.
but why should they be given a hospital bed when it’s down to their own stupidity?
by all means give them a bed and treat them, at a cost of course. The vaccine is free after all.
its going to end up being part of your ability to get a job i think.
I'm already seeing requests for either double jabbed engineers only in some locations or at others - their jab status has to be proven and recorded and if they are a close contact to a positive case they are sent home immediatel - where as a double jabbed close contact can quarantine and test to clear.
It wont take long of tracking the expense of sending folk home for that to progress to only double vax people.
* but then i work in an industry where engineers have elected to be sent home rather than shave their beard off for facefitting of life saving masks.....
I’ve a few rabid anti-V’s across the way. They really can’t be convinced otherwise. The virus was released on purpose. How do they know this? Because a vaccine was available in record breaking time. You really can’t argue with stupid..
Shame as they were a nice couple, but I cannot be arsed to be polite to someone as nuts as they are. Pair of pretty full on God botherer’s but never rammed it down your throat & always a very polite (as long as you didn’t mention anything to do with Islam - their faces would crinkle with disgust at the very mention. Something else I found out this year). The most insane thing is they’ve both had COVID very early on & been pretty bloody ill by all accounts.
Ultimately, it won't really matter that a few (and it really is a few) don't get vaccinated. The vast majority will, and that's pretty much all it takes to get rid of it (or reduce it enough to be background). Winding yourself up about anti vaxxers or folk who refuse to have it, is a pointless exercise, you're only going to give yourself an aneurism 🙂
I hope no one gets a bad dose of COVID, it's a shitty disease, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, whether they've had the vaccine or no
As someone who had/has severe post viral fatigue which sounds similar to long covid it's really no joke - seriously life-changing. There's no guarantee it will ever go away completely.
why should they be given a hospital bed when it’s down to their own stupidity?
Don't be daft.
its going to end up being part of your ability to get a job i think.
Except of course it is illegal to ask about a potential employees medical history in the UK.
Except of course it is illegal to ask about a potential employees medical history in the UK.
lots of things that are now legal pre covid have become illegal by exemption over the course of the last 17 months so i wouldnt bank my job on that.
and frankly there are many jobs in close confines environments where having unvax people mixing with vax people could be a high risk to your business.
Except of course it is illegal to ask about a potential employees medical history in the UK.
I wasn't allowed to work with bodily fluids/tissue samples in a forensic tox lab until I showed them proof of various vaccinations against blood-borne diseases. That was 25 years ago. Similarly a company I was working for about 12 years ago wouldn't book flights to Congo-Brazzaville until I could show my Yellow Fever vaccination certificate.
My current employer is in the process of removing all unvaccinated contractors from the facility after a recent covid outbreak.
If they're being the law they're doing it pretty brazenly.
I feel like this was a perfect microcosm of the whole debate here.
Anti-vax person makes their presence known, demonstrates their inability to really understand numbers/risk/how science works (standing on the shoulders of giants) and then disappears. Meanwhile, everyone else piles on with a load of questions / comments, some of which are equally distasteful (E.g. suggesting denying hospital beds).
I suspect he may be safe under his bridge.
and:
It's easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.
– Mark Twain.
Three decades ago we were in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Health Minister Norman Fowler launched a campaign to promote awareness and to educate people about safe sex - a campaign which was largely successful and had a lasting impact, in spite of some Sunday Times buffoonery at the time that asserted that HIV did not cause AIDS and that AIDS could not spread amongst heterosexuals. By and large, the AIDS awareness campaigns of the 1980s/1990s can be considered a success in spite of contrarian assertions made by journalists with terrible hair.
In the internet age however, we're seeing an overload of information - people aren't educated as to how to critically assess something they watch on YouTube. We have a growing problem of prominent people spreading falsehoods without being challenged - with such an abundance of information, people are selecting the facts that best fit their worldview. Just twelve influencers behind the majority of anti-vax propaganda
Sometimes, it's more than just being misguided - the "wellness" phenomenon has unleashed quackery - Joe Mercola has snake oil to sell you.
Wellness is lucrative business - sobbing Oscar recipient and flange candle flogging lifestyle gurus can make a mint selling stuff that's at best quackery and at worst dangerous “science is just one way of knowing”
It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.
– Mark Twain.
Ironical 🤔 (Unless you have researched Mark Twain and have better evidence?)
Still agree with the sentiment. There’s an actual quote of Twain’s from ‘What Is Man’ which isn’t as snappy but cuts deep into the subject:
I understand why we can't deny them hospital beds, it was more of a rhetorical question than a literal one.
However, in many places there really is a shortage of hospital beds and the brute reality is that doctors have to make tough decisions about who to treat and who to deny a bed. If someone has deliberately refused a vaccine when it's available and then gets covid, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be the one to be denied a bed when there is a shortage. This is not the same as refusing to treat sports injuries on the grounds that sports is an inherently risky endeavour. In the case of sports it's a matter of cost, in the case of covid, it's a situation where not everyone can be treated because there aren't enough hospital beds.
flange candle
Noice.
I don't think Bliss is trolling, FWIW. And not everyone takes these viewpoints simply to be contrarian.
Every vaccination campaign assumes a certain proportion of refuseniks - it's built into the modelling. And, looking overall at this one, uptake has been exceptionally good, and we need to focus on the positives of that.
PJM - Good post ^ to which I'd add that i'm sure in some cases at least, people think there's more to lose by admitting you were wrong than by doubling down again and again. No-one likes being fooled, they like admitting it even less.
Telling them they're stupid makes that worse. We need to provide a ladder to climb down, not kick it away.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/convince-anti-vaxxers
I find it a bit ironic that you won't take a vaccine that protects both you and others because of concerns around your health, whilst at the same time you maintain a weight of 23 stone which is clearly not at all healthy.
I had COVID and was in a pretty bad way in hospital. I was very conscious of getting to a point where I had nothing left in reserve if I continued deteriorating. I'm no athlete, I am also overweight. However I am pretty sure that is I had been older, heavier, less fit then I would have crossed a point of no return. How can you be so confident that you will not be in that position given that you are clinically obese at 6’5 and 23 stone?
I was out for a beer with a mate last week who is an anaesthetist. His ITU is full just now with COVID patients. Every single one of them is un vaccinated. Every. Single. One. His staff are utterly broken.
I struggle to sympathise when I read about anti-vaxxers dying. I absolutely do not sympathise when vocal, influential anti vaxxers die.
Telling them they’re stupid makes that worse. We need to provide a ladder to climb down, not kick it away.
On one level I do agree, but the constant flow of utter dirge from sometimes inauthentic accounts on social media is exhausting - try responding to a tweet by Peter Hitchens that you've had loved ones die from covid and you'll get all kinds of responses that border on the psychopathic. It's exasperating and it requires a great deal of effort not to give the crazies short shift. Yesterday's protest in London which involved a number of anti-lockdown protesters attempting to overrun the former BBC television centre because of a lockdown that no longer exists is both baffling and like witnessing a modern day cargo-cult in the making.
I was out for a beer with a mate last week who is an anaesthetist. His ITU is full just now with COVID patients. Every single one of them is un vaccinated. Every. Single. One. His staff are utterly broken.
One of the worst arguments (how to choose???) I’ve ever read from a Covidiot is ‘well, doctors are going to say that they are busy, because their livelihood depends on it. But so and so told me on Facebook that when they visited a hospital it was EMPTY aNd tHe NurSes ARe DoInG tHere NaiLs and daNcinG foR tiKToK aN eVeRyThiNG wHiCh pRovEs tHat ALL dOctOrs Are LiArs AND THeRe aLsO BeiNg KePt In The DarK by the GreaT ReSet ELiTeS OMG kEEp that POISOn aWay frOm Me ha ha I’m nOt A sTuPid ShEePle, ’
Even taken philosophically/at face value - for someone to display such unquestioning distrust of professional/highly-educated/healthcare-providers etc (and yet paradoxically also display such unquestioning trust in random, unverified, decontextualised, anecdotal, malignant rumours…) tends to point towards psychological-projection? Cognitive dissonance being a given…
And of course if ITU is full of COVID patients, it doesn't have room for people who desperately need elective surgery.
