If you’re low risk why would you be offered a vaccine ?

[distanceIspower]

I’m just wondering - if 1 in 3 are asymptomatic and then most people have mild - moderate symptoms and only a v small percentage get really ill why is the plan now to vaccinate all adults ?

I thought it would be like the flu jab criteria - age, other conditions, being a carer etc

Is there a reason they are aiming to vaccinate all adults ?

I’m low risk. I don’t feel I really need the vaccine but good god do I want my life back so I’ll take it for the sake of humanity 🙈 I like to think I’m a decent person & will do my bit, whatever that may be, to protect others from harm.

For me personally, that’s my ECV mum. Being vaccinated protects her. But being vaccinated protects all the other millions of people who are someone else’s mum, dad, aunt, uncle, daughter, son..

Also, covid is really random. I had very mildly but my same aged friend was horribly ill. She didn’t need hospital but her & her husband were crippled, could barely move out of bed for a whole week. They have two young kids & said it was a living nightmare of a week. Took them 3/4 weeks to fully recover. I’d MUCH rather have 80% protection against the possibility of that happening to me. Who likes being ill?!

@Beaniecats

Because the country has gone hysterical

Nope, it's for quite a few reasons and none of them are hysterical/

1. A certain proportion of people get very sick or die from COVID despite currently be thought of as not vulnerable. Until we have a better way of identifying these individuals it's best to offer the vaccine to everyone.
2. On the same theme, a proportion of people don't initially get ill with COVID, but have long term symptoms (long COVID), again we can't predict who will be affected by this so best to offer vaccination to all.
3. Vaccination minimises transmission, protecting vulnerable people from infection.
4. Vaccination means an individual can't host the virus and allow it to mutate. Preventing mutation minimises the risk of emergence of new strains which could be resistant to the current vaccines, be more transmissible, or be more virulent.

I'm early 40s and have no health conditions but I'm in group 1 and had my vaccine because I work in social care and care for. Vulnerable people

@distanceIspower

I’m just wondering - if 1 in 3 are asymptomatic and then most people have mild - moderate symptoms and only a v small percentage get really ill why is the plan now to vaccinate all adults ?

I thought it would be like the flu jab criteria - age, other conditions, being a carer etc

Is there a reason they are aiming to vaccinate all adults ?

For the same reason that people were asked to work from home if they could: To help protect those who couldn't.

And to support their country in fighting covid, to get children back to school, to get out of lockdown, to get the furloughed back to work and the country back on its feet.

Lots of people don't realise they are vulnerable to covid. There were thousands of men in their 40s in hospital with it this winter. Most were astonished to find themselves there.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but we ask everyone to take the vaccine in order to protect:
*children with leukaemia or other serious illnesses
*children in general to be honest. Nobody really knows which young ones are vulnerable to covid,
*pregnant women who can't have the vaccine yet,
*cancer patients and other people with a compromised immune response,
*and those whose immune systems haven't responded to the vaccine at anything like the level of protection indicated in the vaccine hype headline numbers.
*those who don't know they are vulnerable to covid and won't be fully vaxxed for months.

@safariboot

"Low risk" is not no risk. People of any age can be and have been killed and seriously sickened by Covid-19. It's about 10 times as deadly as seasonal flu.

Make that 1000

Covid has a CFR of about 2-3%

Seasonal flu has a CFR less than 0.002%

That's even before you start with long-covid - long term complications following flu DO occur, but they're exceedingly rare.

Because if you don't know you have it you spread it. You make more people sick. It gets crazy again. Lockdown, destroyed economy.

Also more people have it, more new variants, less protective vaccinnes are.

Also you really want to keep getting covid? It's really not very fun to experience.

And yeah, you can have an 'easy' time with covid but still get long covid. So basically very different from flu.

@Beaniecats

Because the country has gone hysterical

Wrong, as always.

@notrub

The fatality rate of Covid is very heavily dependent on age. At a population level it's generally accepted that the fatality rate is somewhere around 0.5%. However it is over 14% for the very elderly.

For children (particularly under 5's) flu is actually more risky than Covid.

Everyone should have the vaccine when offered one in my view but Covid is not hugely more risky than flu for young people without underlying health conditions.

You do realise that a fatality rate of 0.5% of 66 million people is still a shitload of deaths?

And my completely healthy friend aged 27 died of flu. At home as he hadn’t been terribly ill. He had no underlying health conditions. His funeral was awful and it pops into my mind every time someone says ‘just a flu’.

To reduce cases, including asymptomatic.

To reduce the chances of new variants developing in low risk unvaccinated people that would jeopardise the effectiveness of the vaccine in high risk people.

To reduce the chances of long Covid in everyone. yesterday there was news report that the chances of long Covid are actually higher in those who have a mild case.

To reduce the burden of illness on the NHS and society.

There are many many reasons.

@Mistlewoeandwhine

I'm responding to the assertion that the mortality rate of covid is 2-3%. At population level it is 0.5% but it's much higher than 3% if you are older.

It's a fact that younger people without underlying conditions have much less risk of becoming seriously unwell and/or dying of covid.

That doesn't mean I deny that covid exists, or that I think the lockdowns are unnecessary or that I don't recognise the threat posed by covid to the NHS and society in general. I'm just pointing out that for certain groups, flu and covid are not wildly different it terms of risk levels.

The main issue remains the lack of immunity at population level, meaning the sheer numbers of people infected will result in lots of serious illness and death. That's why we need good uptake of the vaccine across the board.

@Beaniecats

Because the country has gone hysterical

Sorry, haven’t you been posting about being desperate to get your vaccine/hounding your GP for it whilst also saying covid doesn’t exist/then it’s only mild? You seem quite in a rush to have had it for someone who beloveds covid doesn’t exist?

I've had it because of the almost certain requirements for it to have any semblance of normality.

And I've not contacted or hounded my gp sorry mistaken me for someone else there. I had a text to attend