Fed up with unvaccinated colleague isolating

[Peevedcolleague]

Name changed 'cos I'll probably get slated but aibu to be pissed off about a colleague self isolating yet again while the rest of us have to carry on and pick up the pieces?

A new colleague chose not to be jabbed and is now facing numerous isolation periods at home on full pay where the rest of us have to carry on and cover her workload. Nature of the job means she's likely to be a close contact fairly regularly.

Even if she changed her mind and gets jabbed tomorrow, it'll be 10 weeks minimum before she's exempt from isolation so this could happen several more times yet.

Aibu to feel resentful and wish she bloody well got jabbed like the rest of us?

@Beachcomber

Thanks for expanding on the whole "experimental" thing.

I think I probably would use the word for the mRNA vaccines as they use new techniques and are the first vaccines of their kind to be brought to market. That plus them having conditional marketing authorisation status in the EU - which to my mind means that they have been fast-tracked with less comprehensive data than usual. Although of course as been pointed out the situation is different in the US now.

But I see that many posters here would consider "experimental" to mean "untested" which of course these vaccines are not.

New drugs are normally called "first in class" rather than "experimental". The marketing authorisation was based on less comprehensive data in that they didn't review in detail data on things such as manufacturing process as they normally. It doesn't mean they hadn't finished the trials or that they would need to do more trials to get a full licence. Furthermore, the licence has to be renewed each year so they have looked at all the data again recently. I am sure that if the manufacturers submitted all the information on manufacturing excipient et cetera to the licensing authorities in the EU they would get a full licence as they did in the US.

Lots of people on this thread seem to object to laypeople using the word "experimental". Can I ask then what is the word that you think we should be using instead?

Without wanting to be rude, could I refer you back to the exchange you and I had on Saturday afternoon on this very question?

I suggested that if you want words that mean ‘new’ or ‘innovative’ (which is what you thought ‘experimental’ means) then you use ‘new’ or ‘innovative.

You aren’t using ‘experimental’ in its layperson/common use sense - no experiment is being carried out. These ideas and products are not untested. Nor are you using it in a scientific sense.

There are words for what you claim to mean - why not use them?

On the other points you made to me - as I’ve explained, I’m purposely not getting into questions of policy and what should happen, and I try very hard not to be drawn into it. I was simply commenting on the relative strength of current evidence. You asked me what I meant by that; I’ve explained.

YANBU

Quite a few I know who have chosen not to be vaccinated have had the virus

Others don’t feel they are a high risk of becoming very unwell from catching the virus

Others don’t feel they are a high risk of becoming very unwell from catching the virus

The problem with this approach is that some of the risk factors are simply genetic and the person is likely unaware of them. This is why you occasionally hear stories about perfectly healthy 32 year olds dying from covid.

news.vumc.org/2021/07/08/study-finds-genetic-risk-factors-for-severe-covid-19-illness/

I am aware of that

I know others are too but the don’t see the risk as being high (which it isn’t but doesn’t mean it isn’t there)

@OhWhyNot

Quite a few I know who have chosen not to be vaccinated have had the virus

Others don’t feel they are a high risk of becoming very unwell from catching the virus

Why do they believe the virus won't make them ill despite the fact that it has killed millions but at the same time be scared of the vaccine? That makes no sense at all.

To you it doesn’t

But I can completely understand why people are wary of a vaccine when the guidance changes so often

The know the risks

It’s what isn’t understood yet that they are more concerned about

@OhWhyNot

Quite a few I know who have chosen not to be vaccinated have had the virus

Others don’t feel they are a high risk of becoming very unwell from catching the virus

I haven’t had the vaccine because I’m worried about COVID. I don’t think COVID is that alarming, most people seem to recover just fine, and many don’t even have any symptoms.

I’ve primarily had the vaccine so that we can get back to some sense of normality.

So that we can begin to put these interminable two years behind us.

So that our borders can open up again (I’m not in the UK).

So that people like my husband can see his parents again before something happens to them.

The only way any of this is going to happen is if people get vaccinated, so of course I feel incredible resentful towards those individuals who will not do their bit to help. Who opt out. Who see all this as somebody else’s responsibility.

And at this point, the only thing stopping the return of any semblance of normality is the small cohort of vaccine-refusers.

They can hardly be surprised that people’s anger, ire and frustration is directed towards then.

YANBU. I find the thought infuriating as well. If you choose not to be vaccinated so be it, but accept the consequences.

@OhWhyNot

To you it doesn’t

But I can completely understand why people are wary of a vaccine when the guidance changes so often

The know the risks

It’s what isn’t understood yet that they are more concerned about

What guidance on the vaccine keeps changing? What isn't understood about the vaccine and why is that a greater concern than what isn't understood about the virus?

AstraZeneca
Johnson & Johnson
Roll out was suspended for a time

AstraZeneca
Moderna
Changes in guidance changes around age of those receiving vaccine

The waning of the effectiveness of the vaccines

If you have kept up with the news you will have been aware these are just some of the changes

If someone is very wary of those in the medial profession/medication/authorities (and there are valid reason why people are) the changing of information we are receiving why is it so hard to understand that some people do not have such faith to go along with the advice given

Best post on MN - EVER!!

LoveGrooveDanceParty

I am desperate to see my dad he is old and aged so much in the last two years. My ds saw his dad once in eighteen months which for a child is really difficult

But I can still understand people’s fears/concerns

@shrodingersbiscuit That was such a helpful explanation, thank you!

@OhWhyNot

AstraZeneca Johnson & Johnson Roll out was suspended for a time

AstraZeneca
Moderna
Changes in guidance changes around age of those receiving vaccine

The waning of the effectiveness of the vaccines

If you have kept up with the news you will have been aware these are just some of the changes

If someone is very wary of those in the medial profession/medication/authorities (and there are valid reason why people are) the changing of information we are receiving why is it so hard to understand that some people do not have such faith to go along with the advice given

Suspension of the roll out of the vaccines to investigate possible adverse events is a sign of caution and a good thing.

The vaccines were given to the elderly first as they are the most likely to develop severe disease, then made available to younger cohorts. This is also a good thing.

Re the waning of effectiveness, no one predicted anything about the durability of the immune response because there was no longitudinal data. It was also widely anticipated that the virus would mutate, as it has. Now we have data on durability and efficacy against variants. This is also a good thing.

Anyone who anticipated lifetime protection from a new vaccine against a new pathogen had unrealistic expectations.

Whether natural or vaccine mediated immunity is superior doesn’t matter

I think you will find that it matters greatly to the huge numbers of people who have already recovered from covid. And it should matter to those who decide public health policy as certainly where I live vaccinated persons are treated as zero risk of transmission whilst recovered persons are treated as carrying the same risk as covid naive persons from 6 months following infection.

I find the hostility to the word "experimental" shown on this thread odd and the very opposite of reassuring.

mRNA vaccines have never been used before in humans outside clinical trials. We have never had a covid19 pandemic before. Our entire lives are an experiment at the moment. And I think it is OK to say that. People who insist on policeing others' language around this and sneering at them as "antivaxxers" (which let's face it is a euphemism for "loony who is not as clever as me" ) may feel that they are winning some sort of debate but they really don't allay concerns.

I find the hostility to the word "experimental" shown on this thread odd and the very opposite of reassuring.

The word is being used incorrectly and in a misleading way. The testing of the vaccines was over a year ago. Billions of doses have been given.

dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/experimental

Meaning of experimental in English

experimental
adjective
US /ɪkˌsper.əˈmen.t̬əl/ UK /ɪkˌsper.ɪˈmen.təl/

C2
relating to tests, especially scientific ones:

The drug is still at the experimental stage (= is still being tested).

The changes to the distribution system are purely experimental at the moment.

MissConductUS

Again you are able to feel confident in the information given, the changes in guidance or suspensions you will view positively

Not everyone can not everyone is so trusting some people are far more wary/untrusting

All I am saying is I can understand that people feel this way

Covid 19 vaccines are not experimental

Also this is weird to me. Not all covid vaccines are the same.

Someone upthread asked if people considered flu vaccines experimental as they are modified year on year. My reply is no I don't as flu vaccines use traditional methods which are well established and which we have general population historical data on.

I don't consider the AstraZeneca covid vaccine experimental for the same reason.

I do consider mRNA vaccines to be experimental as their methodology has never been used and therefore tested in the general population before. Many people here no doubt disagree with me but their insistence in telling others what words we can and cannot use is patronising and off putting. It comes across as really opinionated and superior.

'Experimental' in this context is a pejorative word. It is used by people who wish to convey the meaning that we should be wary of the vaccine, it is not a neutral word in the same sense that 'new' or 'innovative' is. The recently developed vaccine against malaria is also an mRNA vaccine but no one is describing that as 'experimental'. The flu vaccine changes every year as scientists make a best estimate of which strain is most likely to hit, but no one calls that 'experimental' either.

So by all means use the word if you wish, but you should know it carries a certain connotation which makes it obvious where you stand in the debate.

I’d never really noticed it before but it is true that anti-vaxxers/vaccine refusers always, always use the word ‘experimental’. Never ‘new’, never ‘innovative’, never even ‘novel’.