To refuse the vaccine for this reason

[SEmyarse]

Goodness know why I'm doing this since I'm most averse to being flamed and I'm going to get grilled alive.

My reason being that I don't think that it will work. I don't mean the vaccine itself, I have no specialist knowledge. I mean the whole strategy of vaccinating everyone.

So we're told that the vaccine is good for personal protection. Got it - no-one wants to die of this nasty disease.
And then we're told that its good to protect those around us. Absolutely got it - even if there's a possibility of nasty side effects, I'm not important in the grand scheme, it's a risk assessment for everyone's benefit.

So of course I'd get the vaccine if those were the only considerations.
But surely that only works if we're isolated from the rest of the world. I know there's been lots of talk of helping poorer countries with their vaccine programmes, but really? We're expecting countries who struggle with persistent poverty, illness, war to prioritise this? It's just not going to happen is it? I just can't see it. And it really feels like we're just doing it to stop them giving it back to us.

And even within our own country, and even with our apparently very successful roll-out, I can't see this being sustainable. We already know that it's going to have to be repeated very frequently. Volunteers won't do it forever, halls etc can't be commandeered forever can they? The numbers are way bigger than the flu scheme.

So then we're back to risk assessment. I'm still not massively bothered by the possibility of side effects, but it does seem unwise to take it if I genuinely don't believe it will work or make things better.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that I'm concerned it's going to make things worse. If there was any way of having the young catch it in fairly quick succession, so from a super spreader, surely that would be safer. It would be transmitted in a smaller number of moves, thus less likely to mutate. As it is though we are forcing it though narrower channels of transmission (by social distancing etc), from person, to person, to person etc, giving it much more chance to change. Of course there is no way of doing this safely though. And then we have absolutely no influence when it lands abroad in much larger populations who often have no choice but to carry on, and there we are with another variant, with quite a possibility it will change enough to be a problem.

I honestly believe that the only sensible use of vaccines is for the most vulnerable, to do our best in an out of control situation.

@chesirecat99

I don't think OP thinks that declining the vaccine is going to make a difference.

I, personally, don't want to have the vaccine because I believe (in a similar way to OP) that this vaccination success is going to be shortlived. With poorer countries around the world unable to keep up, Covid will continue to circulate and travel over here. There will be new variants for a long time to come.

I don't want to inject my body with never endingly adjusted vaccines. The one on offer now will soon be redundant - so I'll wait and see - but I suspect I'll be waiting a long time. I suspect.

I can't answer for OP. But my understanding from reading her post was that she was feeling that she would decline the vaccine for these sorts of reasons. I didn't get the feeling that she thought in doing so she would change the world, or anything to do with Covid.

I don't want to inject my body with never endingly adjusted vaccines. The one on offer now will soon be redundant - so I'll wait and see - but I suspect I'll be waiting a long time. I suspect.

Although I disagree with you on many things @Alonim, I believe in informed consent. The issue with the OP is that she is ill-informed. There are plenty of threads debating the issues you've raised so let's not get into that now. It would be more helpful to discuss the issues that OP seems to be concerned about so she can make a decision.

OP has said she is not concerned by the side effects/risks of the vaccine. I specifically asked her why she was concerned about the need for future booster vaccines so people with knowledge can address her concerns but she did not reply. All she has said on the matter is that she has never heard of adults having vaccines or annual boosters

Her other reasoning for not having the vaccine seems to be she doesn't believe people in the developing world will ever be vaccinated on a large scale, the NHS will never be able cope with an annual booster vaccination programme for COVID, allowing people to become infected and develop natural immunity will reduce the mutation rate, and only vaccinating the vulnerable is a more effective strategy. She admits she has no knowledge or understanding of the science, this is just her gut feeling that mass vaccination will make things worse rather than better. Those beliefs are all incorrect as many PPs have pointed out and pointed the OP to the scientific evidence.

How is it selfish to not get the vaccine?

if you end up in a hospital ward and then need to go to critical care - this in itself will prevent others being treated, operations delayed (as critical care beds are needed and staff are short on the ground) so thats why its considered selfish and why its deemed to have something to do with anyone else. It is what has been happening this last 4 months, (though obviously people are and still are being offered the vaccination during this time) people with cover blocking CC beds and if they were in their due to willing not being vaccinated there is a moral issue.

how would you choose who gets treatment?

@ivykaty44 the vast, VAST majority of people with no underlying conditions haven't even taken up a GP telephone appointment, never mind a hospital bed. They have got on with it at home, like I did. Presumably most of those with underlying conditions/those in some way vulnerable have been vaccinated, as they're understandably more fearful. So, again, the problem is?

@ivykaty44

How is it selfish to not get the vaccine?

if you end up in a hospital ward and then need to go to critical care - this in itself will prevent others being treated, operations delayed (as critical care beds are needed and staff are short on the ground) so thats why its considered selfish and why its deemed to have something to do with anyone else. It is what has been happening this last 4 months, (though obviously people are and still are being offered the vaccination during this time) people with cover blocking CC beds and if they were in their due to willing not being vaccinated there is a moral issue.

how would you choose who gets treatment?

how would you choose who gets treatment?

Who needs it the most, and would have the best prognosis. Nothing to do with vaccination status.

There is no such thing as a bed blocking Covid patient. If they need treatment, they need treatment. Bed blocking is where someone is fit for discharge but they are waiting for somewhere to be safely discharged to.

The question was asked, thats how I've answered it, you can refuse to believe that people won't see covid patients blocking cc beds as not applicable. or thats there isn't a problem in hospitals with doctors choosing who gets treatment and who is next in line etc, this is why its seen by many as selfish

tbh I wouldn't' want to be choosing who got treatments next, its beyond me how the doctors do it. If people don't want the vaccination thats fine, your choice but by many it will be seen as selfish, as if they get sick, really sick and need cc they will take up space that others see as wouldn't have been needed if they'd been vaccinated

@ivykaty44 I know what you're saying, it's just not going to happen. It's extremely likely (stats-wise) that if you're under a certain age and generally healthy, covid will be the equivalent of a nasty cold (no, I'm not saying it IS a cold to anyone feeling pedantic) and you'll recover just fine. Just like the likehood of the vaccine itself making somebody very unwell is slim. Would they be considered selfish for HAVING the vaccine if they had to be hospitalised for a time due to ill effects of it? No, they wouldn't, because who's to know they'd be the small percentage that got ill?

It doesn't matter what happens though, unvaccinated will be seen as unselfish for the reason given, and more various reasons.

@ivykaty44 I know they'll be seen as that, that's because most people don't stop to think 'hang on, what the fuck am I on about?'

[quote JesusIsAnyNameFree]@katylees

And those were built for more covid patients. We clearly needed the hospitals to treat covid, we couldn't have just sent the covid patients to the Nightingales, that wouldn't have been enough. We couldn't send cancer patients to the Nightingales either.
The hospitals haven't been a safe environment for someone with cancer and the doctors and nurses have been treating people urgently in need of care. What could they really have done differently, other than saying "Look, I know you're suffocating, but we need to move on from this virus now. It's been long enough. So I'm going to go treat this person with cancer who isn't urgently in need of help instead. Good luck though"
There's only so much they can do, and I think they've done their best.

That said, I have no idea why GPs have been so difficult to see face to face. I'm sure a lot of people would have been happy meeting in a well ventilated tent in the car park when they were desperate to see someone in person.[/quote]
" We clearly needed more hospitals for covid"

You realise that they were all empty during the "pandemic " bar one and have now been mostly torn down as a waste of time?

[quote SlipperyDippery]@katylees

I’m really interested in you invoking human rights as part of your argument. Is there not a basic human right to liberty, and not to be required by law to stay in your home?

If you want to bring human rights into the argument, You need to engage with the fact that the consequence of too many not getting the vaccine will lead to more lockdowns and further horrific infringements of human rights

Anyway I’m not saying that you should be forced to get a vaccine, because I do believe in human rights. I’m saying a consequence of you exercising this right, for fairly spurious reasons, is it the rest of us risk having our fundamental rights taken from us again.[/quote]
Once again, you don't take vaccines in order to justify government legislation. A vaccine should be taken by an individual purely based on health reasons not taking it hoping we don't have a lockdown- conflating medicine and politics using one to influence the other is something we saw 80 years ago in Germany. Imagine saying to the relatives of someone who died as a consequence of taking the vaccine " well she must have been at risk of covid to take the vaccine with its associated risks " and the reply coming back " No it was a political decision"

"Her other reasoning for not having the vaccine seems to be she doesn't believe people in the developing world will ever be vaccinated on a large scale, the NHS will never be able cope with an annual booster vaccination programme for COVID, allowing people to become infected and develop natural immunity will reduce the mutation rate, and only vaccinating the vulnerable is a more effective strategy"

What part of that do you contest @chesirecat99 and why?

Oh god, another attention seeker. Will they wont they? Just do it!

@Franklin12

Oh god, another attention seeker. Will they wont they? Just do it!

You talk about attention seekers yet here you are with this your contribution to the thread- hush up

allowing people to become infected and develop natural immunity will reduce the mutation rate

thats the part id contest, as the more the virus infects the more chance it has of mutating. the more people that are vaccinated the less successful the virus will become

@ivykaty44

allowing people to become infected and develop natural immunity will reduce the mutation rate

thats the part id contest, as the more the virus infects the more chance it has of mutating. the more people that are vaccinated the less successful the virus will become

The counter argument to this is that with all the vaccines the virus mutates in a way to avoid the vaccine making it more dangerous contrary to just burning itself out.

It's highly likely the virus is manmade escaping from a virology lab in Wuhan although unproven but this is the most widely accepted view amongst many scientists now. We are now once again playing God by creating numerous vaccines that could change the nature of the virus so it isn't unreasonable to imply the virus age demographics may change to counter the manmade vaccines protecting the elderly and becoming more dangerous for younger people. All the governments are guessing as they go along for a virus that was created by one of them in the first place

@Sciurus83

HAH!

Well, good job you're not in public health policy with stunning insights like this

😂😂😂😂

@katylees

*We clearly needed more hospitals for covid"

You realise that they were all empty during the "pandemic " bar one and have now been mostly torn down as a waste of time*

I love how you just made up what I said 😂

virus mutates in a way to avoid the vaccine making it more dangerous contrary to just burning itself out.

the virus doesn't mutate fast enough though, as although its mutating the virus isn't making enough people ill who've been vaccinated

@katylees

"Her other reasoning for not having the vaccine seems to be she doesn't believe people in the developing world will ever be vaccinated on a large scale, the NHS will never be able cope with an annual booster vaccination programme for COVID, allowing people to become infected and develop natural immunity will reduce the mutation rate, and only vaccinating the vulnerable is a more effective strategy"

What part of that do you contest @chesirecat99 and why?

All of it @katylees. I don't have time to retype why when those points have already been addressed in this thread.

We are now once again playing God by creating numerous vaccines that could change the nature of the virus so it isn't unreasonable to imply the virus age demographics may change to counter the manmade vaccines protecting the elderly and becoming more dangerous for younger people.

Mutations are random. The chance of any one mutation being a vaccine evading mutation is the same regardless of how many people are vaccinated. It's already been explained several times in the thread how vaccination slows the mutation rate. You are correct that, if such a mutation arises, there will be selection pressure and it might outcompete forms of the virus that don't evade the vaccine. But, if you don't vaccinate people and normalish life resumes, you will likely end up with all those unvaccinated people becoming infected and developing natural immunity, so you then have selection pressure again for a virus that can evade immunity.

We already know that it's going to have to be repeated very frequently.

Governments might say that, but in reality we don't know anything of the sort, because as yet it's too early to say how effective the vaccines are at longer-term immunity. You need at least 6-8 months after having 2 doses to start to assess the immune system's (memory B, CD4, CD8 T cells and antibodies) levels.

I too am baffled by how many completely ordinary things you’ve never heard of. I can only assume you’ve never been to a boots or your local pharmacy and seen flu jabs offered, or walked past a nursery.

Anyway, my question is this - even if you don’t think the flu vaccine is going to work in the long term, why would it be morally wrong to have it? Even if you’re right that it won’t have a beneficial effect and let us get on with our lives (you’re not right, but let’s pretend) - why would it be immoral to give it a try? There’s literally no logic in this.

I'm amazed that this thread is still going. I expected it to have been pulled by now.

The counter argument to this is that with all the vaccines the virus mutates in a way to avoid the vaccine making it more dangerous contrary to just burning itself out.

You realise a virus "burning itself out" and an epidemic or pandemic ending is because there are no more susceptible people in a population for the virus to infect or so few that an infectious person is unlikely to meet a susceptible person, in other words, herd immunity has been reached? A susceptible person is someone who has no immunity to the virus. The only way to get immunity is from infection or vaccination...

The counter argument to this is that with all the vaccines the virus mutates in a way to avoid the vaccine making it more dangerous contrary to just burning itself out.

The vaccine doesn’t know the difference between different kinds of immunity. It is no more likely to mutate to evade vaccine-acquired immunity than it is to mutate to evade disease-acquired immunity.

Vaccines reduce the viral load and severity of infection in even those who do catch it after vaccine, which means fewer replications and fewer opportunities to mutate than with wild-acquired disease.