To not understand the vaccine drama

[Lei8133]

I am so confused by all this anti-vaxxer hate and mandating the COVID vaccine for certain professions extra. IMO if you have had the vaccine (which I have, well I’m awaiting my 2nd dose) surely people who haven’t had the jab pose no increased threat to us. The only people they cause harm to are fellow anti-vaxxers and other unvaccinated people for whom the risk is always present.

Surely whether we like it or not it is a personal choice whether you receive the vaccine or not and the freedom of choice is something we should all advocate for whether we agree with the decision or not surely?!? I just don’t get it and the divide it is causes amongst friends, family and the greater society is saddening. AIBU?!?! If so can someone explain to me how unvaccinated relatives and friends are potentially harmful to me despite having received the jab?

No vaccine is 100% effective - either in stopping transmission or in stopping people being ill. Thankfully the data suggests it does makes a massive difference for both though.

Some people can’t be vaccinated. Some people won’t make any antibodies even if they are.

The more people are are vaccinated then the lower rates of community transmission will become and as a result the lower the number of cases and more importantly hospitalisations/deaths will become

YABU. People who do not vaccinate hurt everyone as no vaccination is 100% effective.
www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/why-vaccination-is-safe-and-important/

The vaccine is the only way out of this pandemic....unless you count letting it run rampant and watching people die.

People who are vaccinated are less likely to get the virus and therefore less likely to pass it on.

High vaccination rates give the virus no home to go to, so the more people who are vaccinated the greater the chance of it dying out. So, people who do not get vaccinated are handing the virus a present, and an invitation to go on reproducing, mutating and killing people.

People who do not get vaccinated for no good reason are condemning the rest of us to years more of this misery - that is why people get pissed off with them.

As I understand it….Vaccines aren’t 100% effective and some people who are vaccinated will still be at risk. The greater the number of unvaccinated people in a community, the more opportunity the virus has to spread. That means outbreaks are more difficult to stem and everyone is at greater risk of exposure — including vaccinated people. It’s about creating a strong herd immunity so the virus does not have the chance to gain that momentum.

Right now I can think of at least two examples of how antivax hurt the whole community.

1. Measles is coming back because the uptake is too low to keep the herd immunity.
2. Whooping cough also came back in numbers that are high enough to pose a threat to newborns. That's why pregnant women are adviced to take whopping cough vaccine to pass antibodies, because babies get their own jab only when they're 8 weeks old. If a newborn has contact with older children and get the virus from them, it poses very high risk

People with certain medical conditions, such as blood cancer, appear to be poorly protected against covid by the vaccines. Pregnant women don't want the jabs. School children can't have the jabs. So, lots of people either can't have it, or aren't protected by it. So, that means that we need as many adults as possible to have to vaccine to protect those others.

No vaccine is 100%. Some frail patients will not be able to have the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable. And unvaccinated people represent an opportunity for the vaccine to mutate further.

It is a personal choice whether or not to have the vaccine, but so is an employer's need to protect their patients and residents by selecting vaccinated staff.

Agree that it's personal choice

If so can someone explain to me how unvaccinated relatives and friends are potentially harmful to me despite having received the jab?

Not overwhelming the NHS is quite rightly the strategy at the moment. Unvaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized and hospitalizations are the number that determines lockdowns.

Also people hospitalized with Covid means NHS unable to work on catching up with the work postponed since Covid as well as usual demand.

Don't forget that some people can't have the vaccine and need hers immunity to protect them.

The more people are vaccinated, the fewer chances for transmission and mutations.

I know that vaccinated people transmit and catch Covid but it's been proven that it's less than unvaccinated people.

Personal choice is fine, but then those who refuse the vaccine must accept the consequences of that refusal such as not being able to travel, attend events/venues or be accepted for certain jobs. That is the cost of 'not wanting to be a guinea pig' or 'I want to see if everyone else dies what happens before I put that in my precious temple of a body'.

Those who cannot be vaccinated or will have reduced effect due to medical conditions rely on herd immunity and I believe it is the duty of all to contribute to that for the sake society. I have no tolerance for rabid anti-vaxxers.

No vaccine is 100%, but these ones are safe and are working. Its a no brainer to the sensible majority.

Just had my second dose yesterday. I am very happy about it.

My concern withe anti vax group is that the rest of us will still have to wear masks and distance to protect them.

I live in an apartment building and we have to wear masks in all public areas. I fear that will continue forever.

I am more worried about some of the easily disproved 'facts' some anti-vaxxers share, influencing others with few facts to back up their claims and their inability to see an alternative view.

Personal choice is one things, trying to influence others with false information is where I feel they cross the line.

I have a couple of covid deniers who I am friends with, they seemed fairly normal before all of this, now the things they share scare me at how easily they have been consumed with this hatred for so many things. I unfollow them monthly!

Vaccinations work on the population level, not at the individual level. Any vaccinated individual might still get Covid, the idea of an effective vaccination strategy is to vaccinate enough people to reach a threshold at which it can no longer circulate, which will also prevent its future mutation. Unfortunately for vaccination to work the way it is supposed to, individual choice can't really be a part of it.

Beyond lessening the likelihood of herd immunity and further allowing the virus to mutate all too often the position is based on faulty reasoning or conspiracy theories. It’s anti science at its core (not talking about those who can’t have the vaccine) and i feel not tackling this sentiment when it began to gain ground following the false Wakefield study we have left the door open to further anti-medical and anti-science views. So it’s not just dangerous in its own right but for the bigger issues it signifies

Also truthfully I couldn’t give much of a rats ass if it is harmful to you or me whether these people take it. It’s harmful to the immunocompromised and those who would love to have the vaccine but can’t. It’s easy to say that those people are always at risk but why should they have to accept a higher degree of risk because some idiot read a bunch of bs on Facebook. Imagine your child had cancer, would you want an unvaccinated nurse treating them?

You don’t understand why some people are dubious and concerned about having this vaccine?!

IMO if you have had the vaccine (which I have, well I’m awaiting my 2nd dose) surely people who haven’t had the jab pose no increased threat to us

Well they do if your one of the 5% of healthy people for whom the jab isn't going to work well. Or the much, much higher %age of those who already have the shitty end of the stick following diagnosis of a cancer or some other serious condition (where first reports were as few as 13% have the intended respomse, though it's perhaps not quite as bad as that)

To me, the biggest concern is if enough people remain unvaccinated, they provide hosts for spread of the vaccine. This gives the virus an opportunity to mutate. We have seen that the delta mutation is more resistant to the vaccine than the alpha strain. If the virus mutates sufficiently to render the vaccines ineffective, then we're all back to square one.

A virus mutates in order to become more effective. If it runs out of suitable hosts (the unvaccinated and those for whom it did not work), it doesn't have the opportunity to do that and peters out.

Thanks all, I appreciate the views and a bit more insight into why people get so incensed over the whole thing.

@Peoniesandpeaches I don’t think it would have crossed my mind to know the vaccine status of the treating professionals pre-COVID. I mean how many people do we come into contact with in everyday situations that don’t have a number of other vaccinations and we never even considered their potential ‘threat’ before?!?!... Would you allow a person with AIDS treat you? Yes. Why? Because it’s not transmissible through touch? Unvaccinated people don’t have Covid... surely they would have to undergo regular testing and would not have Covid when treating cancer...

@Pedalpushers there are roughly 60m people in the us and 40m have been vaccinated (remembering the remaining 20m includes children & assuming all 40m receive both doses) surely the threshold has been reached & the great unwashed’s number isn’t high enough to make a meaningful difference.

The point I’m trying to debate here is why is this particular vaccination issue greater than any other. Not everyone gets every vaccine that is offered to them & their children and we as a society may not approve, but do not openly vilify like we do when it comes to the Covid vaccine in particular. Why is this vaccine issue so divisive?

Just to add... I think testing should be regular and possibly mandated, not testing is defo selfish! But as long as you don’t actually have Covid and isolation rules still apply... what do I care if you get vaccinated or not?!?? IMO

But apparently I am being unreasonable... just nice to hear the opinions of people you don’t know sometimes lol

Great that you got the jab but YABU for a few reasons:

1. The greater the number of unvaccinated people, the more chance of variants arising- some of these variants will be more resistant to the vaccine- meaning the vaccines may cease to work!

1. If a vaccine provides 80% protection against serious illness then you have a 20% chance when vaccinated of falling seriously ill IF you catch it.

1. For people with certain conditions (on certain immunosuppressants or with certain types of cancer) the vaccination is less effective so that even when fully vaccinated they have a higher chance of contracting Covid and of serious illness or death.

1. Some people have medical conditions, which mean they have been told by their consultants that they cannot be vaccinated despite wanting to be.

1. As long as eejits refuse the vaccination, the virus continues to spread, the NHS doesn't operate as it should for all other non-covid medical care so a lot more people die from avoidable deaths.

But testing is in many ways shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Much better to stop people contracting covid that identify they have it but by which point they may well have already spread it.

The argument that a 'negative test is as good as a vaccination' doesn't make sense because you can be contagious with Covid for a few days in a 'prodomal stage' before you test positive AND lateral flow tests are incredibly inaccurate (with a negative test you still have a 40% chance of actually having Covid). PCR tests are more accurate but still not 100%.

The reason that people feel that this matters more when being treated by a medical professional who has not been vaccinated is that most of the common diseases that people might have chosen not to be vaccinated against are either less deadly or more treatable (e.g. TB, Rubella) OR we already have heard immunity to the condition.

unless you count letting it run rampant and watching people die*
Not being facetious, but I genuinely don't understand comments like this. We haven't had masses of people drop dead have we? The likes of supermarket workers, delivery drivers, other medical services (not incl GPs/NHS) and so forth. All of which have worked throughout, with little/inadequate or zero PPE, they've done just fine with no vaccination until now.

The virus isn't harmful to the vast majority of people, are we expecting that to change?