What’s the point of vaccinations when still nothing is deemed ‘safe’?

[katieloves]

Just really struggling with this. We’re doing an amazing job and have so far vaccinated the people most likely to succumb to coronavirus and are cracking on with the people less vulnerable. But still it seems all news is bad and no end in sight. Looks likely that we’ll be lucky if only the youngest get back to school from the 8th and not much chance of secondary schools back until after Easter. It just doesn’t make sense to me at all. Most DC are struggling now - their lives are on hold (I appreciate some dc are thriving with home learning but this is not true for any of the dc I know). Motivation for is on a fine line and who can blame them? But apparently school’s not ‘safe’ even though the most vulnerable are vaccinated. People saying we’ll be back to where we were before lockdown if schools go back in full and hospitals will be overwhelmed. Why??? We’ve vaccinated the most vulnerable. I’m honestly loosing the will.

We have been stuck in this never ending circle for a year now, my ds returned from a school trip to Italy a year ago tomorrow, within a week he was ill with what we now know is Covid, after almost a year of being fobbed off he was diagnosed with CFS/ME, they refused to diagnose long covid because there wasn't a positive Covid test, he couldn't have a test because he was under 18. When we went in to lockdown last March we were told 12 weeks & everything will be ok, bearing in mind Boris was advised by Sage ( when he could be bothered to go to the meetings) to lockdown at the beginning of March but he waited 23 days. We were told that we didn't need to wear masks, another lie. We have been in some kind of lockdown for at least 9 months, except when we were told to eat out to help out in the summer, what a success that was, as soon as schools went back in September numbers started rising again. There have been so many lies about PPE that wasn't fit for purpose, the discharge of patients with Covid to care homes, the world beating test & trace system, all the backhanders to tory doners to run things like test & trace, is it any wonder that people are fed up. We were told once everyone is vaccinated then we can get back to normal, erm, no, now we are told you can still catch & transmit the virus even if you have been vaccinated, so what was the point? The vaccine only reduces the severity, so we will still be having to put up with isolation & all the other crap that goes with it for the foreseeable future. Is it any wonder we are all fed up?

@chickadeeeeeeeee

In 2022! Not staying in until then are we?

Pandemics generally last two years. Be grateful you weren't here when there was Bubonic Plague and no antibiotics. No furlough etc then either.

@chickadeeeeeeeee

Firstly we were told anyone can get it and you may die

However not everyone will get the vaccine so, now there are vulnerable groups, so why have half the population stayed in all this time?

Why did all those that have the vaccine shield, those (less vulnerable and do not qualify for vaccine) get on with life

Shielded would be safe and

We would have an economy that functions?

Instead the narrative keeps changing along with those considered at risk

We have fucked the economy
Fucked the kids futures
And most of us are still in as much risk as we were at the beginning 🤷‍♀️

Or am I missing something?

Because it is impossible to isolate those vulnerable people from the rest of society as they often live with other humans who need to go to school, work, etc.

@katieloves

I can’t understand why people are saying we’ll have a 3rd peak if we start to open up when 99% of the people who die from coronavirus have been vaccinated (elderly and ECV) and now vaccinations are available to the clinically vulnerable too. I still can’t see my mum who was vaccinated 4 weeks ago. Why does it matter if cases rise if these groups are vaccinated?

Because it seems that the vaccines may be far less effective against new variants e.g. the SA one that's now spreading in the UK. So nobody knows yet how effective the vaccination programme will be.

Like flu vaccines they'll need to be tweaked continuously, based partially on guesswork regarding dominant strains, and boosters administered each autumn before the respiratory virus season begins. It's not clear how long protection lasts with a vaccine either.

The answer was ALWAYS to get down to as close to zero cases as possible, have extremely strict border controls, and quarantine in state-run facilities. Properly test and trace the tiny number of people the tiny number or infected have had contact with.

We could have done it in Feb 2020. We could have done it last summer - cases at nearly 0%. But our Government chose not to. That's why we are where we are now. Vaccines alone can't fix it when community transmission and infection rates are so high. Mutations are inevitable when it's been allowed to spread so widely: there are over 25,000 mutations worldwide already. Obviously if your borders are shut like Aus or NZ not such an issue, life is pretty normal just no international travel. And an occassional lockdown of a few days if a case turns up. Just carry on as you were and vaccine each year once the vaccine mayhem has settled.

Blame the people who elected these muppets. Mainland UK is an island. Making it like this was a choice they made. Idiotic. It's not like none of us were telling them in Jan/ Feb last year what needed to be done.

[quote bumbleymummy]@PracticingPerson that would make sense except that we’ve had lockdown/restrictions for months and we’re still getting variants. It’s pretty clear that they’re unavoidable (which isn’t surprising really given that all viruses mutate). It’s just getting a bit silly now. One excuse after another.[/quote]
We only started vaccinating in big numbers after Christmas - it is only the 20th of Feb today.

I understand everyone is desperately keen to get to the next bit, I'm frustrated too, but in case people aren't aware it does take a little time to vaccinate a nation of 70million!

We are on a good path but I am getting worried that the impatient and anti-scientific are going to fuck this up for us again.

how much of a normal life can you afford if we dont have a national health service?

How can we afford a national health service without a normal life (ie the economy) to fund it?
The longer restrictions are in place the more jobs and businesses we lose the less taxes we get leading to even more cuts to an already stretched NHS and a higher welfare bill. The balance has to start tipping the other way soon. We can't live to exist, we should exist to live.

It's not like none of us were telling them in Jan/ Feb last year what needed to be done

It was the WHO who advised not to close the borders

@turquoisewaters

It's not like none of us were telling them in Jan/ Feb last year what needed to be done

It was the WHO who advised not to close the borders

The government have ignored all sorts of advice from the WHO - for example the government went against the WHO advice to test, went against advice to use masks, went against WHO advice not to unlock too fast. Johnson made his choices, Britain has paid the price with very very high deaths.

@PracticingPerson I was actually commenting on one of your earlier posts where you were talking about variants arising because the virus is spreading.

I know that it takes a long time to vaccinate people and I am neither impatient nor anti-scientific

We are on a good path but I am getting worried that the impatient and anti-scientific are going to fuck this up for us again.

There’s no point in worrying like this

There’s always been a pressure between harms a poster might focus on cases only but it’s not the whole picture

@MarshaBradyo

Somewhere I’ve only heard you talk about a situation where we have a divided world for a much longer time. Ie even after vaccination programmes have occurred.

Can you cite anywhere / anyone who is proposing this?

I’m not even saying we should rush the next month. It will likely be a slow lifting of restrictions.

But I haven’t seen anywhere that talks about keeping borders closed long term, eg years. You say Aus will? But I can’t find any viewpoint from quoted government there that backs that up. Can you

This article from Bloomberg talks about the potential long haul travel impacts www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/put-away-the-suitcase-vaccines-won-t-bring-back-overseas-travel

(not exactly what you asked but nearer to it that much I have read)

We are on a good path but I am getting worried that the impatient and anti-scientific are going to fuck this up for us again.

My fear, too. I don't want all the sacrifices so far to be wasted!

DoubleDeckerSwimmer

We are on a good path but I am getting worried that the impatient and anti-scientific are going to fuck this up for us again.

My fear, too. I don't want all the sacrifices so far to be wasted“

Agree. Another couple of months and those groups accounting for 99% of deaths will have had at least one dose, which will protect them from severe illness/death.
Surely that’s worth a matter of two more months of our collective time, given what everyone has already sacrificed? We need to make that sacrifice worthwhile.