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?

Just get the jab - it is the only way we have to confound the virus. For every unvaccinated person, the virus is rubbing its hands and cheering. The fewer people who get vaccinated the more infections and mutations there will be - and alongside these the longer we will all be inconvenienced by restrictions.

Just roll your sleeve up and get it done.

The vaccine is meant to protect the vulnerable, the covid vaccine you can still catch it and transmit it. Therefore if you're fit and healthy it makes no difference if you haven't had it. It's not going to go away, as they have already said it's going to be around as the flu is. Just people like to find an excuse to turn on each other

The vaccine is meant to protect the vulnerable, the covid vaccine you can still catch it and transmit it.

In the vast majority of cases the vaccines prevent infection. And if you are in the minority who do get infected, a single dose of either Pfizer or AZ reduced onward transmission significantly (40-60%).

While we don’t have concrete data on delta there is no indication that the vaccines have stopped preventing infection. The demographic data from surge testing from places like Bolton and Blackburn seems to suggest the impact is still fairly strong.

Therefore if you're fit and healthy it makes no difference if you haven't had it.

This is untrue - see above.

Why do people keep perpetuating these myths?

Honestly? It's your decision not to have the vaccine but it's also my decision to think you are not capable of critical thinking. The reasons for having it have been clearly explained multiple times on this thread and are evidence-based. The anti-vax position is based on misinformation and anti-scientific "fact" sharing on social media.

More than that, I think it speaks to the selfishness of some people in our society and an "I'm alright, Jack attitude." It angers people because those not having the vaccine when they could reasonably do so have the potential to directly impact negatively on the rest of us.

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

Well of course we do. The vaccines are quite specifically tailored to the original strain. Imported strains in particular will have a different signature. Evasion is accidental not due to selection pressure.

It's too early for evidence of selection pressure evolution due to sub optimal vaccine in a single geographical area during a pandemic (no precedent). So we ignore the theory.

Could be hubris. Let's just wait and see if the rules of nature are different this time. Next stop - gravity.

@BluebellsGreenbells

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.

Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit Covid. So you not testing or isolating means you are more of a danger than an unvaccinated person who regularly gets tested and isolates if positive.

It's too early for evidence of selection pressure evolution due to sub optimal vaccine in a single geographical area during a pandemic (no precedent). So we ignore the theory.

I’m not asking for evidence that it has happened, I’m asking for papers or articles on the theory around the relative risk you’ve raised - as I don’t want to ignore it, and I’d like to be better informed on the mechanisms they suggest are in play.

Can you share, rather than being scornful?

The seatbelt analogy sounds OK, but it's a bit rubbish really. No-one runs any kind of risk by putting a seat belt on and no one is actively afraid of doing it.

It's ironic that the many people accusing those who decline the vaccine of selfishness cannot see that it's kind of selfish to insist people take a risk with their health, no matter how big or small, in order to protect them (because that's what they mean when they talk about 'society').

Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit Covid. So you not testing or isolating means you are more of a danger than an unvaccinated person who regularly gets tested and isolates if positive.

Really? Given the massively reduced risk of infection with vaccination, and then the significant reduction in transmission for the minority who do get infected?

How often would the testing need to happen and what mechanism for the risk to be lower? I’m a bit sceptical about this statement even going on single vaccine infection and transmission data.

@Notthemessiah

The seatbelt analogy sounds OK, but it's a bit rubbish really. No-one runs any kind of risk by putting a seat belt on and no one is actively afraid of doing it.

It's ironic that the many people accusing those who decline the vaccine of selfishness cannot see that it's kind of selfish to insist people take a risk with their health, no matter how big or small, in order to protect them (because that's what they mean when they talk about 'society').

Not necessarily true.People can be afraid they will get stuck in a car on fire and not be able to open the seatbelt or similar. A neighbour of mine drowned when his car went into a body of water. Maybe he would have managed to get out if he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt.

Not necessarily true.People can be afraid they will get stuck in a car on fire and not be able to open the seatbelt or similar. A neighbour of mine drowned when his car went into a body of water. Maybe he would have managed to get out if he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt.

Nice try.

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

Becauae the government have decided to set people against each other in a way that I can't remember them ever having done pre-Covid.

@Notthemessiah - Nice try

Nice try at what? You said people are never afraid to wear seatbelts. Some people are. A tiny minority and completely irrational but there you go.

I know after my neighbour drowned I was slightly irrationally afraid and I still feel a little pinprick of fear if I'm driving near open water even though it happened decades ago. I still wear my seatbelt obviously as logic kicks in.

@Plumplumbadum

I resent being called an anti vaxxer because I refuse to have a "vaccine" that is not fully tested. No one knows the long term effects of these jabs because everyone who has one is a test subject. I've had every other vaccine that I should have done through out my life. Most people have over a 99% chance of survival with Covid, weighing that up against an untested medical procedure I know which I choose. And for anyone who wants to bully me and tell me I'm endangering anyone else, I'm both immunocompromised and I have two autoimmune disorders. I for one am sick and tired of the bullying on here for anyone who speaks out or questions this "vaccine". Many of you gang up and behave like a pack of dogs against anyone who doesn't do what you want. That in itself is actually quite worrying. Where does it end?

You are almost definitely more at risk of serious complications from Covid than from long term consequences of the jab. It's obviously your choice but you might be putting yourself at risk.

Oh also another reason for all adults to choose to be vaccinated OP is that apparently if all adults were vaccinated then this would be enough to limit the spread of Covid to the extent that under 18s wouldn't need to be vaccinated.

Because the government have decided to set people against each other
Can you seriously imagine a cabinet meeting where 'how to set people against each other' is on the agenda? - really?

This sort of loose talk gets us nowhere.

The government is trying (somewhat ham-fistedly at times) to free us from this virus and get lives back to as near normal as is possible.

[quote OchonAgusOchonOh]**@Lei8133* - I get that the threat is present. At some point the threat of those other diseases was present too hence the manufacturing of vaccines for them... which some people didn’t take, yet we survived and let those people be.*

The threat from those diseases was in no way comparable to the threat from covid. When I was a child, there were no vaccines for mmr where I lived. I had measles and mumps as a child. I gave my 6m old sister measles. Pretty much everyone of my childhood peers had measles. None of us were hospitalised or suffered long term impacts.

Those diseases did not have the impact on society or our health care system that covid has had. We are dealing with a pandemic here. Measles tended to consist of localised outbreaks that affected a lot of children in the local area. Very different.[/quote]
I was born long before there was a vaccine for measles (1955), and I was nearly hospitalised when I had it at 2 yoa. A friend of my mother's had lost a child to measles a few days earlier.

My mother (a nurse, so not given to over-reacting) really believed I might die, too, because I was so ill. The doctor was visiting daily, in case I needed to be admitted.

Children died from diphtheria too, and we knew a family who had a deaf and blind child as a result of the mother getting German measles in pregnancy.

Vaccinations against these once-common illnesses mean that such things are virtually unheard of nowadays.

@JassyRadlett

Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit Covid. So you not testing or isolating means you are more of a danger than an unvaccinated person who regularly gets tested and isolates if positive.

Really? Given the massively reduced risk of infection with vaccination, and then the significant reduction in transmission for the minority who do get infected?

How often would the testing need to happen and what mechanism for the risk to be lower? I’m a bit sceptical about this statement even going on single vaccine infection and transmission data.

I am not vaccinated. I would rather everyone was tested, rather than this myth going round that if you have have double jabs, you are somehow immune and wont spread anything.

@Anna727b

Oh also another reason for all adults to choose to be vaccinated OP is that apparently if all adults were vaccinated then this would be enough to limit the spread of Covid to the extent that under 18s wouldn't need to be vaccinated.

There is no need to vaccinate kids full stop - the risks to them from COVID are incredibly small.

I'd also like to know where you got that info. General consensus is that, for any chance of herd immunity you would need over 70% of the total population to be immune (note - immune, not just vaccinated as we know that firstly vaccination isn't 100% successful and secondly, even when it is, that while it greatly reduces the risk of being able to spread COVID it doesn't eliminate it entirely) so that seems like an incredibly high bar to achieve without vaccinating 22% of the population (the percentage under 18).

@PinkiOcelot

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

Because there is zero reason to be unless you have valid medical reasons. Healthy antis are just wilfully misinformed, and all the hysterical overpunctuated comments (?!) only make them look worse.

@XenoBitch
Reduced risk is what's being said not "immune". Do read the actual comments not want you want them to say.

@Mischance

Because the government have decided to set people against each other Can you seriously imagine a cabinet meeting where 'how to set people against each other' is on the agenda? - really?

This sort of loose talk gets us nowhere.

The government is trying (somewhat ham-fistedly at times) to free us from this virus and get lives back to as near normal as is possible.

If you don't think that those in power and the money bankrolling them want to see us little people fight amongst ourselves while they make increasing amounts of money from a nice bit of disaster capitalism then I'm sorry but I think you're being horribly naive.

The entire media and political narrative is about persuading us to punch down rather than look up at where the real problem is.

I am not vaccinated. I would rather everyone was tested, rather than this myth going round that if you have have double jabs, you are somehow immune and wont spread anything.

But the reality is you’re massively likely not to.

I understand it’s what you’d prefer, but you talked about about relative risk. I was curious about what that was based on.

People who haven't had the jab pose a threat to the rest because they help to perpetuate the virus, which in turn increases the number of variants, which in turn increases the likelihood of a difficult variant (which may be more lethal, or more resistant to our antibodies).

@VerticalHorizon

People who haven't had the jab pose a threat to the rest because they help to perpetuate the virus, which in turn increases the number of variants, which in turn increases the likelihood of a difficult variant (which may be more lethal, or more resistant to our antibodies).

I am not getting the vaccine. How am I spreading it to all and sundry when I don't even leave my fucking house?