Covid 19 immunisations - would you have it?

[Toooldfornonsense]

Just that really. If and when one becomes available, would you have it?

Taking into consideration the lack of testing time on side effects (I’m meaning years not weeks or months).

Also say if we are tested for immunity and had already had the virus. Would you still have an immunisation? Really interested to hear everyone’s view.

there's a reason I still use ventolin and becotide, even though there's lots of 'better' drugs on the market. I know the many years of side effects that have been recorded.

When you take any new drug (or vaccine) you are the guinea pig. You are the first mass-market trials. Thalidomide could happen today. We were told that SSRIs had no withdrawal symptoms for years - whilst I was sending in yellow cards via my consultants all the time.

So no, I won't be taking any miraculous virus vaccine, or any miraculous cure.

And the people who are most totalitarian about this are guaranteed the ones with the least scientific education, and certainly without the ability to assess the validity of research. I'd recommend they read Bad Science and Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre, and The Patient Paradox by Margaret McCartney.

@nicelegsshameabouttheface talking to people around me - obviously within the current rules - a lot have the same reasoning. We’ve been told it’s a mostly mild virus unless you have underlying health issues or are around vulnerable people and could transmit the virus

Definitely not without antibody testing, and if I had some immunity then I’d say no to the vaccine if it was still offered. If I had no immunity, I’d consider the vaccine with the newer information that we will have at the time.

ChristmasFluff I was going to say exactly the same about thalidomide. People follow the ‘experts’ blindly thinking that they know but sometimes they don’t

The Thalidomide tragedy happened in the 1960's, a good 30 years before the human genome had even been sequenced and the standard of clinical trials we have nowadays.

Understanding of the human body will never be complete but highlighting examples of bad science and not giving a balanced perspective of the HUGE number of new therapeutics that have been released is massively misleading.

I don't agree a vaccine should be mandatory and nothing is without it risk, but I do think people need scientific facts and statistics.

I would have it but it shouldn't be compulsory.
The testing will be rigorous but it obviously won't have been used on a large population. However that's the case for any new drug or vaccine.

@BoingBoingyBoing
In this case people have valid concerns, though. A pp has already mentioned the corus potentially mutating, rendering the vaccine ineffective.
And any vaccine created will be missing the several years of testing which usually come before general use.
Similar happened with the swine flu vaccine, and almost as many people suffered life-altering side effects as died. (In UK 138 dead, estimated 120 with narcolepsy).

Sure would

"And the people who are most totalitarian about this are guaranteed the ones with the least scientific education,"

That's strange. I think the anti-vaxxers and the people who wouldn't have it 'just because' are the ones most likely to have fuck all in the way of scientific understanding of how vaccines work, of risk management and things like that.

Funny old world.

If and when we have a safe vaccine, if a person has no valid reason to refuse to have it than I fully stand by my statement that they are selfish fuckwits.

Yes. 4 reasons:
1.)In my job if I get it a few years down the line I could pass it on to someone vulnerable or to someone who has contact with someone vulnerable. In work I might easily come within 2m of over 150 to 200 people a day. (not at the moment, wfh dur to being vulnerable myself.)
2)Someone has to be first and I'm not a mother. I know that my life is worth less because of this.
3) If I got it, I might take up treatment that could go to someone more deserving.
4) Worthless is not the same as useless. I still have a role that I can do in my job, in providing occasional childcare for a not NT younger relative, other people seem unwilling to do this. I can also do things for elderly relatives.

This: @KeepWashingThoseHands - ‘I don't agree a vaccine should be mandatory and nothing is without it risk, but I do think people need scientific facts and statistics’.

Well said

@BoingBoingyBoing - If and when we have a safe vaccine, if a person has no valid reason to refuse to have it than I fully stand by my statement that they are selfish fuckwits.

Did you have the same opinion about the swine flu vaccine? No way was I having the swine flu vaccine as the testing period was too short and I felt the risk of the vaccine outweighed the risk of swine flu for me.

I know some people who had the swine flu vaccine. One researched the risks and weighed them up. She decided to get it for son with an underlying condition that meant he would probably have died if he got swine flu. The other just blindly decided to get it for the whole family, none of whom had any underlying conditions that put them at particular risk. One of her children now has narcolepsy.

I will not be getting a vaccine until and unless I am confident it has been fully tested and is safe. A rushed vaccine will not be fully tested.

What is the point of giving people scientific facts and statistics when the majority do not understand them and are not willing to try to learn. " Ooo, I don't do maths"
That is why we have the experts to say if something is safe and effective.
I am old enough to remember seeing pictures of children not much older than me in iron lungs from polio ( many died) and I am glad my mother took me for the polio drops on a sugar lump when I was small even though it was fairly new

Yes ,without question

Yes I certainly would have it done. My DS1 is incredibly high risk if he gets it and he is eligible for the flu jab each year, so we would get him to have it too.

Younger people with no underlying health conditions have died from covid-19, andalthough statistically the severity (and risk of dying) increases with age and underlying conditions no one is completely safe - I would be happy to the have the vaccine when offered by the nhs

Forget thalidomide, the vaccine brought to market in the wake if the swine flu pandemic caused dozens of British children to develop a lifelong disability, narcolepsy. They were compensated (poorly) by the government. The story was heavily reported by The Guardian and the BBC. Rushed science is bad, bad science. This vaccine will have nothing like the safety testing of those on the childhood immunisation schedule. So, not for my son, thank you.

Anyone interested in signing up for a clinical trial?

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-03-27-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-programme-opens-clinical-trial-recruitment#

skeptile

I'm sure the experts and the NHS were recommending the swine flu vax as well. Sadly for the families of the children left permanently disabled and poorly compensated.

Nope not yet