Thoughts on the non-vaccinated!

[UnluckyMe]

Why have people been so critical of those who have chosen not to be vaccinated against covid 19?

I've read all sorts of comments about those, like me, who chose not to be vaccinated calling us selfish, uneducated and so on. There seems to be a massive lack of respect for what others choose to do with their body and I'm just curious as go why people feel the need to make comments about it. There are obviously many who don't and I do acknowledge that, my post is more directed to thoughts on why the other side do (feels very playground bully like to me).

The way I see it is everyone has a choice - respect that choice and move on with life rather than throwing insults at one another or dwell on something out of your own control.

I'd also like to confirm i do not own tin foil hat, expect the end of days soon or believe everyone will drop dead in 6 months / will transform into magneto from X-Men (all those coins sticking to people's arms!)

I have followed the rules down to a tee but have just chosen not to be vaccinated at present. Maybe I will change my mind, maybe I won't 🤷‍♀️ who knows.

I am genuinely curious - I read on another post "all vulnerable and sensible people have had the jab" as a comment which riled me a bit too! I like to think I'm pretty sensible but clearly this Mumsnetter thinks otherwise 😆😆

@Wimpund21 your post won the Internet today! Best post ever! You speak the truth that most people don't want to hear.

Because it’s a collective effort to save people from falling very seriously ill & dying. This problem extends beyond you & your personal choice I’m afraid to say. I didn’t particularly want to be jabbed twice & suffer some horrid side effects but hey, I did it & not just because I was thinking about myself. Being vaccinated protects you…..and it also protects other people as well.

Imagine if everyone took the me-centric view of “I don’t really want to have it, it’s personal choice & I'm allowed to be free of criticism in exercising that choice.” Well no, not really - you are going to come under criticism because this attitude fails to recognise the effort we are all required to make on behalf of others. We don’t exist in isolation.

I don't see the logic in refusing to see a friend for lunch because they know they are not vaccinated, yet happy to sit next to a stranger on the bus who they have no idea what their vaccine status is.

You have absolutely no idea how thst poster is mitigating their exposure in other areas of their life. Lunch with friend = spending prolonged time with them, maybe closer than 2m? Maybe without a mask? We don't know. But maybe they continue to WFH, have shopping delivered, wash down the shopping etc etc.

I'm with the poster in being a (relatively) benevolent dictator would be my choice (I would have to be in charge though) because a lot of things would be very different. Including around vaccinations (all, not just Covid) and consequences of remaining unvaccinated (exceptions for those unable to have them for health reasons) etc.

In fact when it broke out in China one of my Chinese team members said to me that being in a dictatorship during a pandemic may have benefits

Wimpund we're all selfish but some are more selfish than others. You choosing to risk the lives of others based on NOTHING is very very very selfish and I despise people like you

Ouch. Despise...strong word. Hashtag Be Kind and all that.

My post lower down lists some of my reasons for declining the vaccine if you're interested. My decision was very much not based on 'nothing'...but don't let that stop you, froth away.

Because the fewer people are vaccinated, the more the virus circulates.

The more it circulates, the more it mutates.

The more it mutates, the more likely it is that a variant will evolve that vaccines don’t work on.

If that happens, millions more will die and the lockdowns will come back.

All of that information has been in all media outlets for over a year.

(Also, the vaccines aren’t 100% effective. People choosing to walk around carrying the virus asymptomatically and passing it on will eventually come into conact with someone the vaccine didn’t work for. At which point the person who catches it from you may die.)

This is why unvaccinated people aren’t very popular.

Selfish things others do - despicable.
Selfish things I do - perfectly OK

Too right,

I am exercising my rights as an individual
You are being selfish
They are being despicable.

It is because unlike other health choices it has an impact on other people. Why would you not do something which would considerably lessen the risk of passing covid on to someone else who might be more vulnerable than you?

I agree with this completely.

@twinmum86

Oh yes - the other thing is if enough people remain unvaccinated, spreading it between themselves there is chance for more variants to arise - possibly these variants could be vaccine resistant and if so we'd be back to square 1!

Quite! That's a very real fear, and there is a new Delta variant emerging in India and Russia.

I wonder how different people's attitudes would be if Covid was worse for the young, rather than the old? Would the anti-vaxxers be prepared to have the vax to protect their children? Other people's children?

Or is it just the old who are considered disposable?

A new variant causing serious illness and death in the young

Wimpund21 Yes but what you, and people like you, selfishly decide is best for your family in the short term may well have negative effects for society as a whole, and you are part of society.

My kids have decided that, for the sake of their futures, we all need to get out of this mess, and therefore have decided to do their part and have the vaccine.

I work part time in a school (secondary). I am over 50 and have a child with a heart condition - he's not had to shelter thankfully as his is a very common heart condition.

We (DH & I) have all our vaccinations up to date to provide him with 'umbrella' immunisation on things like flu each year on advice from his heart consultant. He also has a flu vaccination every year and has done since he was 6 months old.

So we're a 'vax heavy' family. I've always been a pro vax person - my aunt died when she was 10 years old from diphtheria having shared a lolly with a friend who was an asymptomatic carrier. She took two weeks to die, not being able to swallow for some of that time and with an agonising sore throat. My mum, her sister, was 8 years old at the time and had to live with neighbours for the duration as diphtheria is highly contagious and was the third highest killer of children in the 1930s (when my aunt died). Her sister's death haunted my mum until she herself died last year and she'd often tell us about the GP cycling at speed down the road shouting 'Mrs X, it's diphtheria, get the children out of the house, get them out now!' My mum was insistent that we vaccinate and we get our children vaccinated whenever it was offered. Diphtheria vaccine wasn't available to my grandparents, but my mum made damn sure we had ours as soon as we were old enough. My aunt didn't get the chance of herd immunity as the disease just ravaged her body.

For those reasons (our ages, our DS's heart condition and my mum seeing what not having a vaccination available can do), we got our vaccinations. If that makes me a 'sheeple' then I am proud to be one.

As far as everyone else is concerned, I honestly couldn't care less. I would prefer to be treated in hospital, or other NHS places by someone who is vaccinated just because I'm likely to be more vulnerable to Covid at that point (being poorly etc). But I don't care if the person in Tesco or the postman/woman is vaccinated. That's their problem and their choice. As long as the NHS has capacity for Covid victims (vaccinated or not) and my family's health issue aren't being impacted by that rise in need, that's fine.

I'll carry on wearing a mask in busy places if restrictions are lifted, because I want to and it's my choice. I don't expect anyone to question it - they'll get my opinion if they voice theirs. Everyone else can do what they want. You have to live with the consequences of your own actions when you're an adult and we all take a risk in the choices we make.

@StarlingsDarlings

Op, you’ve made a choice about your body, I suggest being comfortable with that and not worrying what others think or say.

You need to take a chill pill OP You have ''thoughts'' about the non-vaccinated.

Chilled people aren't labelling or othering adults for their choices.

You can't start a thread like this and then tell others to chill.

Well, you can, you did but..........

Just throwing it out there - where would we be if everybody took the stance of “I’m not being vaccinated because (insert personal preference here.) We’d be in dire straits, & looking at a very different immediate future. The fact that the majority of people have chosen to be vaccinated sways the balance towards getting out of this shitshow with lives intact.

Personal preference holds weight, & should be respected under normal conditions. But these are not normal conditions. These are conditions that require us to extend our efforts beyond ourselves, in possibly the first real test of our commitment to greater causes than our immediate family.

You are selfish for those reasons if you choose not to get yourself vaccinated (unless you have damn good medical reasons not to.)

@Genderwitched

Wimpund21 Yes but what you, and people like you, selfishly decide is best for your family in the short term may well have negative effects for society as a whole, and you are part of society.

My kids have decided that, for the sake of their futures, we all need to get out of this mess, and therefore have decided to do their part and have the vaccine.

Good for you.

Presumably you don't have a car, never fly abroad for holidays, never eat meat and don't have pets, also for the sake of your children's futures and global society?

Good for you

Thank you, I'll pass on your thanks to my kids.

lmagine if everyone took the me-centric view of “I don’t really want to have it, it’s personal choice & I'm allowed to be free of criticism in exercising that choice.” Well no, not really

I don't expect to be free of criticism AT ALL. I'm a big girl with thick skin, I'm perfectly willing to accept I'll be criticised and I find other people's perspectives interesting. I'm not arrogant enough to be convinced I'm right and all those vaccinated are wrong...I can only trust my own instincts and research right now. Time will tell.

What I, or anyone else who chooses to decline the vaccine, shouldn't have to accept is being told that we're despised. That we're selfish c*nts who want to kill people's granny's.
That hopefully we'll be refused NHS treatment if we get Covid.
That hopefully we'll be declined a ventilator if we need one.
That we should be forcibly injected or lose our jobs and freedoms.
That we are scum.
Uneducated.
Not worthy of respect.
Shameful.
Should be ostracised by family and friends.

All of these I've read, most of them on this very thread.

No one should have to accept being spoken to like this for making the same bodily autonomous choice that the vaccinated made - albeit a different one.

It does seem like hysteria to me, at times cult-like in its extremism.

I find the acceptance of this almost more worrying than the vaccine itself tbh. The only thing that elicits such a strong response in the general population is very successful propaganda. Which is terrifying on a societal level.

@Genderwitched

Good for you

Thank you, I'll pass on your thanks to my kids.

What thanks?

Seems like not only are you ignoring the things you do you're now actively making stuff up.

We have 8 people in our icu non of them have been vaccinated. I would personally prefer not to ventilate and watch people die of a virus that can be prevented but it is their choice and so I continue to attempt to save their lives.

I've had it and I fully support friends' right to say no to it, so it's not some polarised paradigm SELFISH decline it while the SELFLESS have it.

And still nobody who has decided against the vaccine (note, decided against rather than unable) has provided an answer as to what the way out of this (or as much as we’ll ever get out of this) will be, if everyone took their position? Apart from Covid-deniers that is, or those who don’t actually think the vaccines work anyway - and it’s clear not everyone who is vaccine hesitant/refuses is a Covid denier/thinks this. I’m hearing on this thread in particular that it’s more they consider the vaccine more of a risk to themselves than Covid. But if everyone took that position then where would we be?? It’s this point I have never seen anyone answer (though to be fair this is the billionth thread on this, I haven’t read them all!)

I was just coming back to answer the idiotic comments the OP had made about my response to her post. Obviously, she's not been vaccinated against stupidity and she also needs a booster jab to improve her resilience to constructive criticism 🤣However, if she's still reading I hope she has the most stupendous, gorgeous, unrelentingly wonderful Monday that anyone has ever had since ... er, the invention of Mondays 😆

Thanks for the couple responses with regards to natural immunity. Does anyone know the immunity differences between actually having had Covid vs the vaccine? I appreciate natural immunity won't last but neither will vaccine given immunity.

Of you don't have it you can't fanny around singing and dancing to "The Rhythm of Life" with a smug grin on your moosh. That'll learn ya.

Because the fewer people are vaccinated, the more the virus circulates. The more it circulates, the more it mutates. The more it mutates, the more likely it is that a variant will evolve that vaccines don’t work on. If that happens, millions more will die and the lockdowns will come back

This is another misleading 'reason to vaccinate' trotted out over and over again.

The virus will continue happily spreading and mutating amongst the unvaccinated, sure. Most of whom are children...and, I suspect, should vaccines be introduced for them, will have a far lower uptake.

You can't stop this virus mutating unless you vaccinate every child down to newborn. Which won't happen. Vaccinating 100% of over 12's globally STILL won't stop mutations on any meaningful level.

It's an unwinnable war. Covid is probably here for ever. Until a vaccine is introduced with 100% success at protection - maybe we'll get lucky but this is likely decade's away.

I find the people who talk about 'the end' of the virus and restrictions and the return to 'normal' in the immediate future fascinating in their short sightedness.

What end? There is no end, the only hope for an end would have been containment, the attempts at which failed pretty quickly.

The virus, mutations, jabs, boosters, lockdowns, closures, restrictions are now probably a permanent, intermittent, feature of our lives for the rest of our living days.

Well I suppose as long as all those who have refused the vaccine are happy to remain in perpetual lockdowns, never travel or see people from different parts of the country, no theatre, or shows, or large gatherings, or weddings or funerals. Are you happy to home school, WFH, meet on Zoom, and for the economy to free fall? Are you ok with the hospitals being under pressure so that if you are diagnosed with an illness your treatment would be delayed or non existent because of funding cuts.

Or are you just happy for everyone else to get vaccinated while you don't risk yourself?

They will be queuing up for the vaccination when in a year's time they have ended up in hospital and taken months to recover, when there was absolutely no need for them to be that ill, at all.