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?

We all had cv here. Dh worse than me. Thanks to a fuck up, he has just found out, from a blood test from September, that he's type 2 diabetic. He was only just into the range then. He had a recent blood test that shows his levels have jumped 10 points since then. The only thing that has changed, was a dose of cv, which, as we know, is more dangerous for diabetics anyway.

I think that the risk of a massively tested vaccine is less than those of a disease we still don't know enough about. People who don't want the vaccine keep trotting out the same bollocks too, even though they've been refuted numerous times.

grenlei

@WhenSheWasBad to me, the risks of the vaccine are greater than Covid. You're in no position to judge that risk assessment. Why shouldn't I receive NHS treatment IF I needed it?

If you have been advised by a medical professional not to receive the vaccine- that’s fair enough. I’m guessing that’s not the case or you would have mentioned it earlier.

You coming on talking about the “risks of vaccines vs the risks of Covid” is decidedly unhelpful.
Millions upon millions of people have been vaccinated in this country. Hospitals have not been inundated with patients suffering from appalling side effects (I’m not saying extremely negative side effects never happen but they are exceptionally rare).
Hospitals have however been full of very sick Covid patients.
It is extremely disingenuous of you to present the risks from vaccination and the risks from Covid as equal.

Regarding why shouldn’t I receive treatment if I get Covid
I think you should get treatment. But just be honest to yourself that you expect to have your cake and eat it.
You aren’t prepared to take on the tiny tiny tiny risk from a vaccine. But you expect society/the NHS to pick up the pieces of your choice goes tits up for you as you get very sick with Covid.

[quote OchonAgusOchonOh]**@Grenlei* - My stance on this vaccine is not the same as my stance on vaccination per se, and I think I should have the right to decline it without derision or penalty.*

I fully support your right to decline the vaccine. However, as your decision impacts on me and society in general (see the wonderful analogy to seat belt wearing that a PP posted), I also have a right to be disgruntled at your decision. Not that you should care what I think and in real life, I would never tell someone what I thought of them for not taking the vaccine. However, I would be cautious about interacting with them.

Regarding your right to decline without a penalty, I don't agree with you there, simply because your lack of vaccine creates a risk to others. I see it as similar to smoking. You have a right to smoke but you don't have the right to put others at risk by smoking around them in enclosed public places. You have a right to decline the vaccine but if your status puts others at risk, then limitations (e.g. travel etc) should be placed on your actions.[/quote]
@OchonAgusOchonOh The only thing I don’t agree with is that restrictions should be placed on unvaccinated people... smoking is risky life choice, increasing yours and others risk of illness and death and therefore you should be prohibited from inflicting that risk on others I.e. smoking in confined spaces etc. Again driving is a risky life choice and therefore choosing to drive/driving without seatbelts increases yours and others risk of death so you should be prohibited in taking increased risks that affect others, I.e. no seatbelts.... travelling/visiting the cinema as a perfectly healthy individual... that’s not doing something adverse that is threatening to others and we have to be careful to confuse not being vaccinated with having covid or we run the risk of treating people like lepers...

*unvaccinated

smoking is risky life choice, increasing yours and others risk of illness and death and therefore you should be prohibited from inflicting that risk on others

I’m interested that you think it’s ethically wrong to inflict the risk of illness and death on others because of smoking, but ethically ok to inflict the risk of Covid and Covid variants on them, with the same potential outcome?

I know you’re trying to draw a distinction between Covid and Covid vaccination in this - but the risk of inflicting all of those things on another person is much higher if you aren’t vaccinated.

Are you taking other steps to reduce that risk (though obviously that only works for preventing transmission - the risk of a variant if you get it still exists)? Or do you just see it as totally different to those other behaviours that increase risks for others?

@Lei8133 - Again driving is a risky life choice and therefore choosing to drive/driving without seatbelts increases yours and others risk of death so you should be prohibited in taking increased risks that affect others, I.e. no seatbelts....

Choosing not to wear a seat belt is exactly like choosing not to be vaccinated. 99% of the time, your choice has no negative impact on you or others. However, it is an offence to drive without wearing a seatbelt in order to protect you and others for that 1% of journeys. Same with the vaccine. By not being vaccinated, you are putting yourself and others at higher risk. By restricting your activities, the rest of us are being protected even though 99% (or whatever) of the time, no harm would come to anyone.

Well if the vaccines only stop spread by 50 per cent, how are they the way out of all this?

Having had Covid, I perceive the risks of the vaccine as being greater to me. That's my decision and assessment to make, and I will defend the right to make that choice. This sniping at people not having the vaccine reminds me of Brexit, where anyone who voted leave was labelled by remainers as an idiot rather than simply having a different point of view.

I will not be having the vaccine. I believe it poses greater risks to me. That's my view based on my research and knowledge of my own body. And I'm not going to be browbeaten or hectored into changing my mind.

Let's try and respect different POVs rather than buying into the propaganda that we MUST all be vaccinated or these restrictions will go on forever because there are plenty of places outside the UK where that hasn't happened.

Someone on my Facebook posted a pic before comparing the attitude towards those who have chosen not to have a vaccine as being on par with racism

@JassyRadlett I appreciate what you’re saying here. But the things we used for comparison are lifestyle choices. I don’t think living in it’s rawest form (without intervention of modern medicine) can be considered a lifestyle choice. Just to live... or can it be?!? I mean if this was a different time the choice to vaccinate wouldn’t have even been an option, people just lived and died... too early? Maybe. Not fair? Maybe. But that was life. Just because we have medicines now, doesn’t mean that we have to use them... is a life taking medicines and preventing death considered ‘natural’ because it is possible?!? By the distinction I made earlier, using medicine would be considered a lifestyle choice equal to smoking and driving etc. These are additions that we as people have included within what is constituted as ‘normal life’.

Maybe I’m just a rouge being. Lol, I can never seem to agree wholeheartedly with any one idea.

Having had Covid, I perceive the risks of the vaccine as being greater to me. That's my decision and assessment to make

You are making decisions with your feelings, not with any actual evidence. That’s fine, but you don’t seem to be willing to admit that you want to have your cake and eat it.

I will not be having the vaccine. I believe it poses greater risks to me. That's my view based on my research and knowledge of my own body. And I'm not going to be browbeaten or hectored into changing my mind

I’m under no illusion I’ll change your mind. But you have to admit to yourself you want the best of both worlds.
Unwilling to subject yourself to the tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny risk of the vaccine. But you expect the NHS to pick up the pieces if you do need treatment for Covid (admittedly this is unlikely).

You will reap the benefits for living in a society where most people are vaccinated, but you are willing to contribute towards it. That’s fine if that’s your position. Just be honest and admit it.

But the things we used for comparison are lifestyle choices. I don’t think living in it’s rawest form (without intervention of modern medicine) can be considered a lifestyle choice.

But the trouble is that ‘just living’ for everyone is being severely impacted by Covid, and the longer it takes to reach. So in that context just about everything we do around Covid is to some extent a lifestyle choice - and the choice not to vaccinate can create negative impacts for others.

And it comes back to one I’ve seen a lot of over the last few days is around intent versus impact. Does motivation or the factors that cause the negative impact matter? I think it’s a matter of perspective.

For the person who is acting, the kind of choice they’ve made and their motivations - as you’ve set out here - matter a great deal.

For the people who are impacted, does the motivation or the kind of choice it is matter as much? Almost certainly not. And the higher the risk associated with the impact - either in terms of likelihood or severity - the greater the dissonance will feel between the people making the choice and the people impacted by it who see the distinction between eg smoking and non-vaccine-taking as much less important if the impact on their lives may still be shit.

Speculating what would have happened without modern medicine isn’t really relevant - it’s an interesting thought experiment and we have some good historical pointers but ultimately the ethical decision we have to make and the feelings we have to grapple with are within our current reality.

And again - I’m not saying that people should be forced to be vaccinated. But those who are demanding respect for their choice not to be vaccinated should also respect that others’ frustration around that choice, because of the risks and direct impacts of a a longer pandemic, are also valid. And the question of whether it should be totally consequence free while disease is still circulating in areas like quarantine-free travel or attendance at mass events when being unvaccinated makes you a much higher risk to others is not clear cut.

Well if the vaccines only stop spread by 50 per cent, how are they the way out of all this?

‘Spread’ is not that simple.

From the data we have so far, we know that vaccines stop you getting infected by well over 50%. It varies by vaccine and the data I is emerging still but Israel reported Pfizer cut infection by around 75%, the Mayo clinic had similar. The official U.K. figures are 55-70% after one dose of Pfizer and 70-90% after 2; AZ is 60-70% after one dose and no data yet for two doses.

So those are people who aren’t getting infected, so can’t pass it on. Good start.

Then there’s the question of onward transmission: if you do get it, how likely are you to pass it on?

Studies from March and April put single dose impact on transmission as cutting it by 40-50%, more recent data seems to be nudging it higher 40-60%) and second dose should also have an impact on that.

Obviously Delta isn’t factored into this but we know that two doses still work pretty well against it.

So: if you’re vaccinated, you are much less likely to get infected. And if you’re in the minority who do get infected, you’re much less likely to pass it on - so there’s a cumulative effect.

And of course they are also shit hot at preventing hospitalisation and death which is their primary purpose. And less severe disease = fewer replications = less chance of mutation, so that’s important too.

The data is not clear. We are informed that the majority of deaths (53%) occurred in the vaccinated. This has been further informed by differentiating between number of vaccinations and the time since vaccination. But no demographic data.

We are thus given no demographic data of the unvaccinated. It makes a huge difference if these were vaccine refuseniks despite eligibility or ineligible due to age or existing conditions.

Logically it doesn't make sense that the unvaccinated would be a breeding ground for variants. Unless you think that the unvaccinated have naturally enhanced immunity, mutation is simply not necessary. Viruses are economical, they don't mutate for the hell of it.

The unvaccinated, including the previously non-vulnerable may become hosts for the virus that was contracted and transmitted by the partially vaccinated - ie relatively high circulating virus may struggle to get a foothold in the previously vulnerable who have had one dose, but partial immunity may boost the virus so that it can more successfully transmit, especially if more cases are asymptomatic combined with behavioural changes. But this is more about the virus adapting hosts. Because of imperfectly vaccinating some, with delay, whilst the virus is circulating. Of course it will mutate and seek out the new vulnerable.

But to seek to blame the unvaccinated for this natural evolution of the virus to overcome partial vaccine obstacles is illogical.

@KOKOagainandagain - But to seek to blame the unvaccinated for this natural evolution of the virus to overcome partial vaccine obstacles is illogical.

Nobody is blaming the unvaccinated for mutations. Mutations are naturally occurring. However, the more people are unvaccinated, the more likely the spread of covid and the consequent increased potential for mutations. All of the mutations we have seen have started out in locations with low levels or no vaccinations so suggesting it's the partially vaccinated who are causing the mutations is nonsense.

Logically it doesn't make sense that the unvaccinated would be a breeding ground for variants. Unless you think that the unvaccinated have naturally enhanced immunity, mutation is simply not necessary. Viruses are economical, they don't mutate for the hell of it.

Viruses aren’t sentient. They don’t choose when to mutate. They just happen. Most disappear because they have no selection advantage (and some put the virus at a disadvantage). The mutations that survive and proliferate are those with a combination of selection advantage and luck.

A mutation is a copying error when the virus replicates. The majority of mutations that happen to viruses are actually harmful to the virus. Those that don’t actually kill it or stop it replicating again might make it stronger, or weaker.

Most of the variants that have so far been observed for Covid have disappeared. They didn’t have a sufficient selection advantage.

If vaccination stops up to 90% of infections, then up to 90% of vaccinated people provide no breeding ground at all for mutations because there are no replications going on in their bodies.

The unvaccinated and those in whom the vaccines have been less infected are the only ‘breeding ground’ the virus has. Because they’re the only place replication can happen, and has the potential to get lucky.

Vaccines are a selection pressure - so a variant than can infect more vaccinated people will have an advantage and will be more likely to become dominant. And mutations that are able to survive in the vaccinated + infected may be more likely to have a selection advantage though the articles I’ve read say that this hasn’t been demonstrated for Covid.

But the idea that mutations won’t happen in unvaccinated people is not supported by science that I’ve seen - though always happy to be corrected!

The fact remains that the best way to minimise the risk of a more dangerous variant is to minimise the number of replications that take place.

That means preventing infections, and minimising the severity and duration of disease in those who are infected.

And preventing opportunities for onward transmission - for example, a variation with a 50% advantage over the vaccine compared to eg alpha will have much less chance of getting a foothold if it’s met with a wall of vaccinated people than if there are a lot of gaps in the wall that give it more chance to spread - remembering that Covid spread, particularly at low infection rates, tends not to be linear.

Of course there is random mutation in the unvaccinated. And mutations that allow transmission will be selected on grounds of efficiency. Viruses usually become less virulent over time because they are only transmissible when the host is symptomatic. Bedridden hosts that quickly die are not good transmitters and so the virus dies too.

Asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission is a game changer. More virulent mutations are not selected out. Because they have already found new hosts to replicate in. So you have to be wary if vaccinations are most effective in terms of reducing severe symptoms and death but are less effective in reducing asymptomatic illness and transmission.

The risk of becoming infected between first and second doses is higher regardless of level of immunity 2 or 3 weeks after second dose and is dependant on risk of becoming infected in the first place. In the UK we say that rates are low if they are lower than the last peak. Other countries would consider our low rates high and pay more attention to trend showing community transmission and exponential growth.

If a person does become infected after the first dose of vaccine, their immune response may not be sufficient to clear the virus. A bit like a course of antibiotics to clear a nasty infection might reduce symptoms but not clear the infection. The person may be asymptomatic but the virus will be mutating to adapt to a new environment that is not lethal but harder to survive in. And this confers advantage because, by luck, learning to survive in this environment means the virus can also survive in other tougher environments.

So from the viruses adaptive non-sentient viewpoint, the previously vulnerable are now less vulnerable but the previously I in non-vulnerable are now more vulnerable. Without this 'training' the virus would have not been able to infect the previously non-vulnerable. Why do you think the narrative has changed from vaccinating the vulnerable to all over 18s and they now want to vaccinate children?

I hate the comparison to flu but only the vulnerable are vaccinated and have annual boosters. Herd immunity, vaccinating 80% of the population annually if not 6 monthly? Labs may be able to tweak in response to mutations but actual delivery is a huge logistical challenge.

You need to consider how vaccination/non-vaccination has impacted on the dynamic in a closed system. And how the virus can find new hosts in a different geographic area regardless.

You answered your own question
'only people they cause harm to are fellow anti-vaxxers and other unvaccinated people for whom the risk is always present.'

So from the viruses adaptive non-sentient viewpoint, the previously vulnerable are now less vulnerable but the previously I in non-vulnerable are now more vulnerable. Without this 'training' the virus would have not been able to infect the previously non-vulnerable.

Although of course we have variants that are better able to evade our vaccines than the original strain, that emerged before any vaccine rollout.

The papers I’ve read have been pretty agnostic on whether the risk of vaccine-evading variants is higher or lower in the semi-vaccinated on an individual basis - it seems that on a population basis there is a clearer picture emerging based on infection rates even after a single vaccine (though delta screws the figures). Have you something you can share on the investigations on this area in Covid and the conclusions they’ve been able to draw?

To be simple about it.

New variants arise because of 'mistakes' in virus' DNA copying during replication. Viruses cannot replicate on their own, and must infect people to do so.

People who are unvaccinated are much more likely to get infected, and therefore have more replication of virus. And therefore greater likelihood of a random mutation causing a particularly nasty variant.

Nasty future variants are dangerous and scary and are much more likely to occur when there are large group of unvaccinated people.

But let’s face it, none of us who are vaccinated woke up thinking ‘I’m going to get that jab for the sake of those with autoimmune diseases, who can’t be jabbed themselves!’ We got it to protect ourselves, because we don’t want to die from Covid...

I think that a lot of people get the jab so that they can socialise with people they know who can't be jabbed whether that's because of age or medical reasons. I know that vaccinated people can transmit and catch Covid but I don't want to do pass it on to people like my teen son who is unlikely to even be offered a vaccine (He would like it so that he reduces the likelihood of catching it at school amongst others reasons) He's probably not going to die but he's been jabbed for other diseases that aren't likely to kill him

Also wanted to say that I'm unlikely to die from Covid but as a single parent I don't want to be hospitalized or have it long-term so I can't work

You need to read up about variants .. variants happen in unvaccinated people which mean they can get stronger and then infect vaccinated people making the vaccines useless and ergo, fuck everything up even further.

Shortly all those vaccinated will be free to travel and return to no testing and no isolation.
Those unvaccinated - including children will continue to be tested and isolated until a negative test is given. If positive they will have 14 day isolation.

So those with children will have to fork out ££££ for tests whilst the vaccinated will not.

This is an additional tax on families.

As my family are all jabbed, we will never have to be tested or isolated in future - my friends however will have to limit travel for the next year or so.

The threat is the unvaccinated catching the virus and passing it on to others not vaccinated AND to those who can’t be vaccinated.