"I'm not going to have the vaccine, I'm always washing my hands"

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

How do you argue with stupid

She fails to see that the vaccine isn't to protect her - it's to keep hospitals less rammed.

She has skin in the game - her husband has a plethora of on going health concerns which mean at least an annual 3 day stay in hospital - which will only happen if they have space. Which they won't do if everyone chooses to eschew the vaccine.

Plus. It's airborne. Wash your hands all you like but it someone with it coughs in your face then voila!

Who's 'she'?

My mother.

Well she's quite clearly an idiot, what else do you want anyone to say?

What do you think her real issue is, ie not what she says but what she's thinking/believing?

I have been told that if you have the vaccine you can still carry and pass on the virus? That’s why you have to continue to isolate after you’ve have it. That’s what my elderly relative was told who has had the vaccine. So I presumed from that that it is to protect you? Not sure though!

She believes that everything that happens to a person is someone's fault. Usually the person who it happens to. It's an awful trait truth be told. In the past it has covered depression (they don't get outside enough), miscarriage (picking up their older child), Alzheimer's (poor diet) and on and on.

She believes that those who has caught covid have done so because they've not worked hard enough to avoid it.

Have

Not has.

She sounds horrible. What is her justification for her husbands multiple health problems? What has he done "wrong" to cause them?

Find her some good examples in the Daily Mail or wherever of foolish people (the Mail being what it is, it’ll probably be BAME people, but needs must) refusing the vaccine for nonsensical/paranoid reasons and then getting very ill. There will be some cropping up soon enough.

Move “not getting the vaccine and then getting ill” firmly into her mental category of “a bad thing happened to them but it was their fault so it couldn’t happen to me”.

Oh dear, I think you’ve got a problem there trying to tell her otherwise. My MIL was against getting the flu jab and only had it when she couldn’t refuse at annual check ups.

So counter her stupidity with a rational rebuttal! My DM is a Brexiteer and often comes out with complete crap, so I'm experienced in this area. Since the start of the pandemic, which she brands 'a nonsense', 'an overreaction' and constantly rails against 'being locked in my home', despite her being 72 and overweight, so a prime candidate for a serious case and/or death, I have had to talk sense to her. I don't mince my words, I don't sugarcoat them, I call her out in very clear terms. She is, however, getting her vaccine this week, thank goodness. She refuses a flu vaccine every winter, so I did wonder if she'd comply, but she is going to - mainly because she's desperate to see her friends again (all of whom have taken Covid very seriously - to her irritation), and to go on holiday.

@MusicalTrifleMonkey

I have been told that if you have the vaccine you can still carry and pass on the virus? That’s why you have to continue to isolate after you’ve have it. That’s what my elderly relative was told who has had the vaccine. So I presumed from that that it is to protect you? Not sure though!

The jury is out on this one. More accurate to say you may still be able to carry and pass on the virus. It’s probable that you are less likely to do so, but we don’t know for sure. And if it’s a reduction in risk, we wouldn’t know who could and who couldn’t, just as we won’t know who doesn’t develop immunity after the vaccine.

So the advice to maintain the same precautions after vaccination is absolutely sound. But at the same time, there is a good chance that vaccinated people are protecting others as well.

I don't know. My aunt, 76, calls Covid a bully that you need to stand up to.

She tests the bully every day by picking up her friend in her car every day, going to many shops, visiting people, and finding pointless job for her odd job man to do.

She says that as it hasn't got her yet, that she might be immune as she had the 'Hong Kong Flu' in the 60s. We were tier 4 before lockdown.

She's had cancer twice and several stays in hospital over the years since.

This weeks she had a (self diagnosed) cold and refused to entertain getting a Covid test.

We spoke on the phone yesterday where she accused me of being scared because I do click and collect and only go out when I need to. She said how sorry she feels for NHS frontline staff, though. I explained that it was not out of cowardice, but out of consideration for those same NHS workers that I go out so little.

Middleager, your aunt is a bloody good reason for everyone else to stay in to avoid her.

@Mindymomo

Oh dear, I think you’ve got a problem there trying to tell her otherwise. My MIL was against getting the flu jab and only had it when she couldn’t refuse at annual check ups.

You can refuse the flu jab.

Oh dear. Well she's doomed to prove herself wrong, isn't she. Sadly.

Similar over here. FIL CEV shielding has rarely been out the door since March but point blank refuses the vaccine and I quote "will take his chances" I do wonder if some people think that covid is going to miraculously disappear any time soon and we will be back to life as we knew it before

@3littlewords

Similar over here. FIL CEV shielding has rarely been out the door since March but point blank refuses the vaccine and I quote "will take his chances" I do wonder if some people think that covid is going to miraculously disappear any time soon and we will be back to life as we knew it before

If he's willing to 'take his chances' what's his rationale for staying in his house since March???

@zafferana Hes just weird! The theories and predictions he comes out with are mind boggling