to want the anti-vaxxers to explain themselves?

[Goldfsh]

My Facebook feed is full of GP practices etc. promoting the flu jab, and EVERY response is from people saying they are full of poison, giving everyone flu, part of a government conspiracy, Bill Gates, big pharma, etc.

It doesn't matter where the GP surgery is in the country, the responses are all the same.

Just... WOT IS GOING ON????

It's literally 100% of the respondents. Please can someone explain to me why the general public (on my feeds anyway) have become convinced that the flu jab is part of a conspiracy... to what end?!

It also went the other way during covid, with so many people convinced that it was the only possible cause of anything bad happening.

My DGM died in 2020 - she had been in very poor physical and mental health for years and was nearly 98. To be honest, the biggest surprise was how on earth she clung on for so long.

Yet the number of people who, upon hearing that she died, almost excitedly asked "Ooh, was it covid?"

Even if a very old, decades-long very ill lady had died of covid, I don't actually see why that would have been seen as more fascinating than anything else that very old people frequently die from. Maybe if it had been one UTI too many that did for her, that wouldn't have been nearly as ripe for chatter.

Then again, the statements at the time about covid being officially blamed as a catch-all for deaths - whereby you could have been diagnosed with mild symptoms of covid and then, if you'd been run over with a steam roller or fallen out of a 30th-floor window, you'd officially died from (or at least 'with') covid and were added to the official statistics - certainly didn't help people to maintain a balanced, educated approach.

You can well see why many people are dubious about taking official assurances about health matters at face value.

I think you'll be waiting a long time if you want logic from anti vaxxers.

I'm getting my flu vaccine this morning. I want to reduce the probability of catching flu.

Anyone who doesn't get it is entirely within their rights to do so, but cannot then moan and groan about hospitals full of poorly people, or lack of GP appointments. On a population level, high vaccination rates reduce disease and reduce strain on the health service. Even if they are only 30% effective, that's a third reduction on the number of patients potentially needing treatment. At individual level it's a choice, at population level, it's a responsibility.

It's really quite simple, the healthcare and pharma industries, experts and governments over sold and coerced people into taking the covid jab.

Many people now do not trust any of the above and some are overtly hostile to them.

It will take the healthcare sector a long time and being squeeky clean for that trust to be earned back.

I think people have lost sight about the world before vaccines, or ignore the rest of the world where they are not available and the high mortality rates.

My Dad was an health director for our council. In his time he encountered so many awful diseases now eradicated or diminished. He had friends with polio, deaf friends from measels. I remember them all. He was a huge advocate of vaccination, we all had everything going, as he saw the devastating consequences of disease prior to vaccination.

“You people”?

Oh dear.

Does that apply to the flu jab? I may be out of touch but I thought it was only given to a few vulnerable groups.

I know anyone can go and pay for one, but most don't and the sky has not fallen in. If it is that important why isn't it on the NHS?

People lost trust in pretty much everything when the covid-19 jab was rushed through and then the government got a hair's breadth away from introducing vaccine passports. Remember that lunacy? There are vaccines that have been around for donkey's moons and are trusted. But people become far more cautious when a vaccine is rushed out. For me that's not being an 'anti-vaxxer', that's just possessing very basic common sense.

There is also the idea of vaccine mandates which I am strongly against. I support vaccinations, but not when the government is threatening people with losing their jobs for being sceptical about getting it.

Also, isn't it weird how people were fully against allowing family members to visit unless they'd had all the vaccinations, then Russia invaded Ukraine and suddenly it was fine to have people over and living with them! Complete strangers from Ukraine. Hell of a narrative shift.

But I digress.

TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers are people who disagree with getting vaccinated. They are not to be lumped in with people who are against being threatened by the government into getting vaccinated.

My theory is that any older people who died from Covid were likely to die from the next flu that came along. I'm sorry you lost your GM but, like you say, 98 is a great lifespan, so good you got her for long long.

My 20 year old son is immune compromised. He was given antivirals for Covid, which kept him out of hospital, but a few weeks later he was hospitalised with the flu. I hear you on causes of death. If he had died (thank goodness he didn't) would he have died because of the underlying condition that meant he had to take immune suppressing medication? From the medication? From the flu/Covid? Sometimes it's a matter of 'what came first?'

Up to 60% in the years when the vaccine viruses are same/similar to the circulating flu viruses.
Obviously improved efficacy would be nice but without the benefit of a crystal ball, the scientists who develop the vaccine (which is different every year) have no way of knowing with 100% certainty which viruses will be circulating during flu season.

That's bollocks.

Most are so thick they don't even know how thick they are!

My SIL visited recently, on day 1 she started spouting anti-vaxx shite. I have degrees in biochemistry and immunology and have worked in and around pharma my entire career. 😂She shut up pretty quickly when I explained that I won't have anti-vaxxers in my house. This is a woman who recently spent 10 days in hospital being pumped full of drugs to keep her lungs working because 60 years of chain smoking has fucked them. Didn't have a problem with medics and scientists and big pharma keeping her alive then. Honestly sometimes I wonder why we bother.

Thanks all for the comments! Good point re. Facebook algorithms driving rage-bait. It's the lack of reasoned responses that is so odd. And I understand people's anxieties about the covid jab (although I think they are incorrect) but why this has turned into anti-flu-jab seems wild.

I agree with the largely-Russian origin theory as well - that makes the most sense to me. Some profiles are clearly fake/bots but not all.

Anyway I'm booking in for my flu jab today - yay!

You'll have a long wait OP. My bro was very unlucky, getting Covid early in 2020 , a year before the vaccine. Unlike his wife and adult offspring he became very ill and was bedbound for over a month. For a year or so afterwards he would get palpitations after modest exercise.

Naturally enough he became very interested in possible cures , dietary changes and whatnot. So.....he binge watched YouTube videos, especially John Campbell. Sometimes in late 21 iirc , Campbell claimed that Ivermectin was a cure for Covid but big Pharma were suppressing this. Campbell's viewing figures exploded after this episode and his content became more alarmist , to put it mildly. He became totally anti vaxx , RNA Vax anyway.

One of Campbells earlier guest , Dr Susan Oliver , spotted that he had made an statistical error in his Ivermectin episode and she contacted him privately several times . No response. So she went public . But the ship had sailed. Campbell had gone from 50k subscribers to about half a million last time I looked at the ghouls YouTube.

Now my brother has 'progressed' to such cultural lodestones as Russell Brand , Neil Oliver and Tucker Carlson. I think it's the way the algorithms feed you more and more of whatever you're having. But I'm not very tech savvy myself. So to conclude, we have an intelligent man who is very suspicious of vaccines. Despite being very ill before said vaccine was even invented. Needless to say there are certain subjects we avoid. Ps I had my flu and COVID jabs last week. Sore arm. End of.

From my small study of the antivaxxers I know of, I can confirm they are all poorly educated.

The point being that your post came across as very rude has passed you by. What did you mean by "you people"?

That's fine. Choose to not have it by all means. (The covid jab/flu jab.) It should be an individual choice,

But what people are talking about/pissed off about is the constant bullshit comments on certain social media platforms about how toxic the jabs are, and how people are all being injected with poison, and how 'the government' are 'slowly killing us all.' It's ludicrous bullshit, and dangerous advice because it could put someone off having the jabs, and they could get covid and die.

I remember a number of anti-vaccine people throughout 2021 who refused to get the covid jab, and they got covid and died. If they'd had the jab they would very likely have lived. (Some were in their 40s and 50s!!!)

!

Absolutely not true for both my parents. Both died of Covid pre vaccine. Both had regular annual flu vaccines, never had flu, rarely had seasonal colds.

And two family members of mine had the flu vaccine and still got the flu this year. That's my anecdote that is just as valid as yours, even though it is opposite. I pretty much never get the flu either and I've never had a flu vaccine in my life. I get maybe one cold a year. A flu maybe twice in the last 20 years.

I'm sorry for the loss of your parents. You must have lost them quite close together. That's rough.

I remember that poor tria- athlete guy. Think he was only in his forties and super fit. So he passed on the vaccine. On his deathbed he urged people to get it. But anti vaxxers aren't bothered by cases like that. Because :

He was a crisis actor
He never said that - They are making it up
It wasn't COVID that killed him

And so on forever.

Exactly this. ^

Though of course, the anti vaxxers will say NONE of the above. 🙄

As you say, I bet some of the anti vaxxers have used weight loss jabs too. Now I wouldn't be putting THAT into my body, because no-one knows the long term effects. And it's already known that it can be detrimental to your internal organs if you over-use it.

I wouldn't be posting stuff online though, telling everyone it's poison, it's toxic, and the government are selling it to you as they want to kill you all off within 10 years.

Yep!

All I would like to say is that there isn’t just 2 types of people, vaxxers and anti vaxxers.

Some people pick and choose what vaccines to take. I got the Covid vaccine but not the flu vaccine.

maybe I’m a semi-vaxxer 😂

The antivaxers I've known actually don't do those things. I don't do all vaccines (I've never had a flu jab in my life and only two Covid vaccines) and don't do those things, though I'm sensible enough to know that antibiotics do have their place, as does anesthetic. I have however known some who wouldn't do antibiotics.

Yes, this. Or if they’d take chemo drugs if they have cancer