Can we please stop saying the vaccine does not reduce transmission?

[Frequentflier]

It does. Plenty of evidence now out which everyone can find for themselves. edition.cnn.com/2021/03/29/health/pfizer-and-moderna-covid-19-vaccines-work-wellness/index.html

It is up to you to not take the vaccine if you don't want to. But please stop dressing it up as an unselfish choice if you have no conditions that stop you from taking it.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

It's not coercion It's just that people are entitled to express opinions on other people's decisions on vaccination that do actually affect the whole of society

Certain behaviours are disapproved of eg smoking is more frowned on now than it used to be and that's a good thing because it paved the way for an indoor smoking ban which has reduced rates of lung cancer. It's your choice if you want to smoke but you can't expect people to necessarily support you wholeheartedly in that choice and never critique you.

Would you be OK about Drs, nurses and care home workers refusing the vaccine? Or is it OK if social pressure applies to them?

As you point out there is any easy way to avoid any criticism just decline to reveal your vaccination status or to participate in any discussion. That's something everyone has a right to do

But to say that people can't express a pro vaccination opinion on a debate site like Mumsnet without it amounting to 'coercion' is just bizarre.

Are you seriously comparing being asked not to smoke around others to being coerced into taking a new medication that no one knows the long-term effects of?

Of course it's ok for healthcare workers to refuse the vaccine. Are you saying some people should be coerced into taking medication by threat of being fired? Is that the world we live in now? Why not coerce them into taking meds to keep them awake and productive in that case? Or meds that make them more compliant? Why stop at vaccines?

I very clearly said that everyone has a right to refuse and that they always will do and I agree with that.

However what you call 'coercion' I might call a public health campaign

At my Trust managers kept track of how many people had had their vaccine and published it in the newsletter. There was certainly heavy encouragement at an organisational level to get it

This is nothing new to me it happens with the flu vaccine every year as well

No-one would lose their job for refusing but there was a great deal of encouragement to have it.

That is the line
It is fine for the government and the health service and opinion leaders and anyone to encourage people with publicity campaigns to do things that are for the good of public health. That is not coercion.

Tbh I consider I had the vaccine for selfish reasons. I’m not supportive of having my freedom curtailed to stop people I don’t know getting ill or dying. I am prepared to have a vaccine though for the same reasons. And indeed have done.

Refuse it if you like. It is absolutely your choice so own it but to expect no criticism about that choice is not a reasonable expectation

However what you call 'coercion' I might call a public health campaign

What sort of public health campaign would advocate people being criticised for their right to choose?

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I find it interesting how not taking a vaccine is considered a 'selfish' choice, when shutting down the entire economy, forcing people out of work, denying children education, creating a budget deficit that will haunt our children for their entire lives, destroying careers and livelihoods in a way that massively impacts younger people, ie the people in the least amount of danger from covid, is considered - what - unselfish?

It is unbelievable to me that people are expected to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice to extent of taking a medication that they personally don't need and may have unknown side effects that have long term health consequences, and people are genuinely calling them selfish for not wanting to do that.

What the fuck is wrong with people???

Not taking the vaccine is selfish. The measures taken were to protect us all, especially the older people and the vulnerable. Are you a hermit?

Exactly

I had the vaccine to stop other people dying of COVID

But also to stop other people dying of cancer untreated because of COVID restricted services and to stop other people attempting suicide because they cannot bear the economic hardship and social isolation any longer.

I did not have it to stop me from having 2 weeks of a flu like illness which I have already had.

There is nothing wrong with emphasising that the vaccine reduces transmission and that this is a good reason to be vaccinated because it is the truth.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I find it interesting how not taking a vaccine is considered a 'selfish' choice, when shutting down the entire economy, forcing people out of work, denying children education, creating a budget deficit that will haunt our children for their entire lives, destroying careers and livelihoods in a way that massively impacts younger people, ie the people in the least amount of danger from covid, is considered - what - unselfish?

It is unbelievable to me that people are expected to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice to extent of taking a medication that they personally don't need and may have unknown side effects that have long term health consequences, and people are genuinely calling them selfish for not wanting to do that.

What the fuck is wrong with people???

@TheDailyCarbunkle nailed it! 👏

@FourWordsImMuNiTy

True SPB, but way too many people are still arguing as if it were a fact that the vaccine has no effect at all on transmission.

Because its not 100% effective it must therefore be zero. You hear that sort of logic in all sorts of things.

The people refusing the vaccines are the ones who might push us into needing another lockdown and more social distancing measures.

The government are the only ones who push us into needing another lockdown and more social distancing measures. Lockdown is a choice. For months our numbers in Scotland were comparable to a US state of the same size and climate. And yet, their gyms and pools and dining and schools were all open. Masked and socially distanced, of course, but I don't think the majority of people would complain about those two things if life felt more normal.

When you rely on everyone else to get it, and you sit back and reap the rewards, then people will comment on the selfishness of this.

Well isn't this exactly like saying when you rely on everyone else to stay at home, lose their jobs and businesses, miss out on social interaction, education and all the rest, and you sit back and reap the rewards, then people will comment on the selfishness of this?

But people don't really do this because it's frankly horrible and everyone is selfish to different extents.

"Reaping the rewards" of not catching a virus that is no real threat to the vast majority of people. Right. There are certain people who will reap the rewards and that's totally fine, but why is it incomprehensible to people that some people really do not give a fuck about the minute risk of covid? And may give more of a fuck about the unknown long term risks of a vaccine that isn't going to do much for them?

The zombie-like tunnel vision around covid is frightening.

I cannot agree more with everything @TheDailyCarbunkle is saying.

For younger people the straight up personal risk benefit is probably barely in favour

The vaccine isn't risky. The most anyone can point to is some as yet unidentified possible future risk. If you generally aren't a vaccine sceptic then there's no reason to decline this vaccine more than any other.

However Covid very likely isn't risky for the majority of younger people. There is a small and unpredictable risk of serious illness and for me I'd have the vaccine for that reason because the vaccine isn't risky and Covid has a very small chance that it is.

The more compelling reason for a younger person to be vaccinated is to get the population to a position of herd immunity where the virus cannot spread and therefore protect everyone. Those who are vulnerable, those unvaccinated and those who would unpredictability have a bad illness. That then allows us all to have our freedoms back. Freedom from Covid restrictions is the best reason for young people to have a COVID vaccine.

This is the same reasoning why you vaccinate your child with MMR (unless you are an overall vaccine sceptic) there is a very small risk of severe complications to your own child that you wish them to avoid but also by contributing to herd immunity you protect all children.

We have to talk about vaccines preventing transmission because it is true and it's a good reason to get vaccinated.

The vaccine isn't risky

The long term data does not yet exist.

What would you define as long term?
Why do I particularly need any long term data? Name me a vaccine complication that happened many years later? Narcolepsy and swine flu it was within a few months
In general it's hard to find credible cases of vaccine related harms

Everyone has to decide for themselves but for me, applying my scientific and medical knowledge to it, I was happy even to participate in a vaccine trial because I know that vaccines are generally pretty safe medicine

At least until the trial period ends in 2023.

A year ago I may have refused the vaccine.
after a year of lockdown put me first in the queue.
Had my second jab next week.
The uptake in my area has been amazing. So hopefully enough people generally have taken up the chance and this will put us in a strong position to to stop the spread of covid.

If there is going to be a vaccine complication it's going to be a very rare one or we'd have found it by now

It's going to be so rare that the risks of getting COVID even as a younger person will outweigh it.

That's my personal risk: benefit evaluation that I make for myself
Everyone has a right to make their own but literally all I am saying is that reducing risk to others is a valid thing to consider in your decision making and a thing that most people I think would consider because surely we all have people we care about.

@reformedcharacters

Refuse it if you like. It is absolutely your choice so own it but to expect no criticism about that choice is not a reasonable expectation

I can’t agree with this as social pressure amounts to coercion. We’ve gone down a road of vaccination being virtue signalling and people are being singled out and bullied, it’s wrong and it’s also wrong to pressure people to reveal their status.

I agree with this. OP, it's absolutely not your business - or anybody else's. The sooner you get that into your head, the better it will be for everybody; the hectoring needs to stop.

Agree with you OP, it’s infuriating how many comments I see on here repeating that ‘vaccines dont stop transmission’. Of course they bloody do, it’s just a lot more convenient for the government to keep some mystery around it and let people assume they don’t otherwise they would face too many questions about why there need to be restrictions for vaccinated people, and they don’t want a two tier society. I’m sure there will conveniently be lots more evidence discussed showing how vaccines do prevent transmission when it’s convenient for them to tell us that.

I think that the same people who just 5 months ago were darkly warning us 'They'll never find a vaccine. Sorry' have now shifted to 'They don't know if the vaccine prevents transmission' or 'You do realise the vaccine isn't effective against the vaaaariants?"

Let's not pretend that there aren't quite a few folks on MN who absolutely love being the bearer of bad news, even if it's made up.

The government does have to bear some responsibility for this myth that vaccines don't prevent spread.

They haven't wanted to let people know and early on pushed a line that 'we don't know if they do' which was true but was pushed to sound like 'they probably don't' when anyone who knows any science or medicine knows it was always likely that they would.

They did this because they don't want vaccinated people flouting restrictions and making the police job harder (because anyone could say they'd had a vaccine)

They might have a job reversing that messaging though if Mumsnet is anything to go by.

@reformedcharacters

The vaccine isn't risky

The long term data does not yet exist.

We've been vaccinating since the 1940s. The vaccines for Covid haven't just popped up overnight, they are based on years of science and research.

The safety of vaccines is well documented. That twat Wakefield, who claimed that the MMR was linked with autism, has an awful lot to answer for.

Long term data, for the safety of vaccines does exist.

I don't think it is illogical to be critical of lockdown and critical of mass vaccination.

Especially when the moral argument of mass vaccination is predicated on avoidance of lockdown. The manufactured crisis through ineptitude creates a context where vaccination cannot be rationally discussed.

Prolonged lockdown was by no means inevitable. You could only argue that was the case when all alternatives had failed. This country either did not try alternatives that had worked for other countries or did half arsed attempts much too late when the horse had already bolted.

Fair play to scientists. They seem to be rightly saying that the imperfectly vaccinated but still infected post vaccination warrant special attention due to variants that escape.

There are countries with low infection and death rates but also countries with high infection rates but low death rates. Counties that learned from SARS and countries that treat early.

Countries with low rates are not anti vaccine. They are just not panicking. The west might be stockpiling vaccine but so what? They have cornered the market in an unnecessary product and are now arguing its necessity. The best time to vaccinate is when rates are low.

But MSM are still bizarrely saying that the unvaccinated are the biggest threat because they will develop vaccine resistant strains. How? They may be infected with them but that's because they have been exported by other countries incompletely vaccinating and creating more virulent strains.

What is illogical is to jump the shark and believe that the virus doesn't exist or is equivalent to flu or that lowering the viral load is unnecessary.

Druidlookingidiot

You can’t win an argument by resorting to insults.

It does get a bit irritating when some posters keep stating that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission when all the evidence suggests otherwise. And those that complain about lockdown at the same time are even more ridiculous. The only way things will get back to normal as if there is herd immunity so everyone needs to stop making excuses.

Obviously it's wonderful news if the vaccine significantly reduces transmission. It'd definitely make me more inclined to have the vaccine (I'm unlikely to be offered it till June I think).
I still think though that it's very unfair to tell the vaccine hesitant that they're being selfish. Because it's inconsistent. Where would it end? You could say lots of things people do daily are selfish... Driving a car, flying, owning a bigger home than needed, wasting food, and on & on. I don't see how refusing the vaccine is uniquely selfish beyond anything else? Most people try to be good people, and do their best in life. But everyone has a limit. For some people that limit is medical treatment they don't feel comfortable with. In every other area of life they may be very altruistic.
Also, some people need it more. For example @CovoidOfAllHumanity I agree you're right to have it as a frontline worker (though I wouldn't judge you if you didn't) but someone low risk who lives alone and works outdoors, or from home alone or similar, simply doesn't need it as much. Some people are seeing it as a very black & white issue. It's nuanced, like most things. I think people are scared and frustrated these days, and that's why. But my advice to those eager to encourage others to be vaccinated, please respond to the hesitant with kindness and empathy. Allegations of selfishness will put people off all the more. The vaccine is a big scary deal for some people. I don't think selfishness comes into it nearly as much as you may think...