I hate anti-vaxxers

Have you heard of Mary Mallon? Her 'medical choices' killed up to 50 people.

Sometimes they are none of anyone else's business but sometimes it very much is.

Equally vaccinations when travelling abroad for holidays should be mandatory even if the risk is low.

Of note
TB should be a mandatory vaccine given at a young age. It’s on the rise. I had all of mine done as babies.

Louds of people happily wandered around during Covid without masks
Met up, ignored safeguarding advice
Took risks at others expense

People have choices yes ( that’s their right ) but also just don’t care much about others these days

This is a terribly ignorant thing to say.

Totally agree OP. I contracted measles as a young adult as vaccinations weren’t widely offered when I was a child. I didn’t know I wasn’t vaccinated or I would have gone to get it done.

It was a horrendous experience. I was hospitalised and delirious with the fever. Dr said I was very lucky to escape long term side effects as my brain swelled. I cannot fathom how anyone could even remotely consider putting their young child through it.

A friend who is a nurse said she regularly gets people whose children are very unwell with measles telling her to give them the vaccine. When she explains it’s too late, they get angry at her. I really cannot understand these people at all.

Can’t believe that comment that it’s “not anyone else’s concern”! How dim can you be! That’s the whole flipping point!

Imagine having to explain to a teen they are permanently damaged because you refused to get them a vaccine? My grandmother lost hearing in one ear for life due to measles (pre vaccine), Dh was extremely ill as a young man with mumps and was genuinely terrified he had been rendered infertile

I'm researching my family history, emigration from the UK to NZ in the 1850s-1860s. One ship, the Ganges, carried just over 100 children among the 470 total passengers. Of those little ones, FIFTY-TWO, yes, almost HALF of the under-fives died, mostly of whooping cough or its effects. Some parents lost two babies on the same day. Two adults died. Can you imagine the pain? Shall we do a reprise of that in the 21st century?

If you are in an outbreak area, ask your GP for an early MRR. They might then say your child needs 3 doses, but it'll keep them safe especially if in nursery. I do think vaccination should become mandatory for nursery and school attendance, and mandatory for immigration to UK (TB, measles and whooping cough at a minimum). Everyone can retain choice, but just reduce the impact of that choice on others.

There has been insufficient BCG vaccination across London due to historical low supply missing a cohort, but I guess there'll need to be a TB outbreak affecting kids before that's caught up.

Personally I’d do what other countries do and say no funded childcare until dc are vaccinated.

They are everybody's concern if those decisions can harm other people.

Antivaxxers put other people at risk through their own ignorance and/or stupidity. Parents who don't vaccinate their children (without any sound medical reason) should be charged with child abuse and prosecuted.

Look up pictures of small pox and then see how your own ‘feelies’ feel. Fortunately, due to mass vaccination, it has been eradicated so you don’t have to worry about dying or being disfigured by it.

I'm in Australia and our measles outbreak was started by someone coming from overseas unvaccinated and contagious. It's spreading fast & especially in my city because we have a large population of migrants and refugees from developing countries bringing down the vaccination %.

I've never forgiven SIL for letting her young, unvaxxed DC near my newborn during an outbreak of whooping cough. I didn't know, she didn't care enough to tell me. What's worse is SIL vaxxed DC soon after to get into childcare (nursery) as you need vaccination to get the govt subsidy. Amazing how she changed her mind. Also had Covid vax immediately in 2020, to keep her job as a teacher. ...

@HedwigIsMySpiritAnimal yes whilst I think the anti vaxxer 'thing' is a bit of a red herring in reality these threads do always confirm to me that these people fo exist and how extremely thick they always are - every time.

It is a problem of their own making (UK Gov, NHS, manufacturers, SAGE etc).

Like it or not the approach taken during COVID had the effect of splitting society into two groups, the majority of people who "go along with it" and a significant minority who "don't like being told what to do". Each group have their various mythologies for why they are more noble. But I think it just comes down to different personalities/character and reaction to the pressure.
Therefore if the national approach to COVID had been different we would probably be better on vaccine uptake generally in 2025.

Jesus the ignorance is terrifying 😩

Yup @Genevieva the data is startling obvious in what it shows but it's still a difficult conversation to have because people are scared those conversations might have undertones where they could be accused of racism. It's really frustrating.

When it comes to vaccines they’re everyone’s concern! Do you understand how herd immunity works??

@Ineedcoffee2021 what if your child got measles, gave it to a newborn baby and that baby died?

Both have an impact and there's no reason why both shouldn't be addressed.

In 2023 around 70% of UK adults said that vaccinations were safe and effective, down from 90% in 2018 (Vaccine Confidence Project, run by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).)

A recent YouGov survey suggested 30% of people had concerns about vaccinations in 2024, up from 19% in 2019.

There is a growing trend of mistrust which clearly is going to impact uptake.

As I said, there’s no evidence that what you might call political vaccine scepticism has much sway in real life in the U.K. It’s not America. The lowest vaccine uptake is in areas with high levels of immigration and low levels of fluency in English. The decline in uptake is associated with globalisation. The answer is to require people to be folly vaccinated before travelling here from countries that have low levels of vaccination.

Vaccine uptake in the UK is declining year on year.

We are quickly going to lose our reputation for high vaccine uptake - hence the measles outbreak that OP is talking about. Numbers of anti-vaxxers, or at least people who have concerns are increasing (mostly due to nonsense on social media).

Society and people are changing and we can no longer flippantly say we have a high vaccine uptake so we're OK... People and society are changing.

It's not for someone else's "feelies".
It's to prevent outbreaks of dangerous diseases that we had eradicated in the UK until recently.

It's a matter of concern.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/09/parents-urged-to-get-children-mmr-jab-as-one-in-six-not-fully-vaccinated