Feeling so low about this new world of vaccines

[blue12345]

Just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as me? For many reasons, I've decided not to get the Covid vaccine. I' have all my vaccines and all my kids are vaccinated. I state this to show I'm not an anti-vaxxer, although I increasingly feel like one.

I'm feeling very isolated from my friends and family as a result of this. Everyone I meet asks me am I booked in yet, am I double-vaccinated. I don't bother getting into conversations about it , but it still causes me anxiety and has led to friction. A very close friend has asked me a few times have I got an appointment for my vaccine yet and I've tried to brush her off, as I think she will be unlikely to want to spend time around me after she finds out I'm not getting it. I've also found that lots of friends have cut back on their contact with me.

I am very comfortable with my decision, but I'm just so sad that we now live in a world where the segregation of vaccinated and unvaccinated people is allowed, in both interpersonal relations and also looking more and more likely that services like restaurants and travel will be similarly restricted.

@bumbleymummy interesting article for you.

Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza: a nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study

Your not alone OP, i haven't had the vaccine either

@XenoBitch

Out of interest, why do all your friends know you're not getting the vaccine? You see it as a medical procedure, which people generally consider sensitive and private, so why tell them?

[quote blue12345]@Unsure33 I'm not arguing against myself. The vulnerable should be vaccinated, if they so choose. The vaccine obviously protects them from hospitalisation.

However, I am confident that due to exposure to Covid already and/or my own episode of mild Covid-like illness in February 2020, it is unlikely that I would be hospitalised with it.

Lots of my opinions are based on my own personal extended circle not suffering at all with Covid but I know 3 people who have suffered severe side effects from the vaccine so far, with 2 being advised not to take the 2nd vaccine.

This is anecdotal I realise, but I can't help how it's made me feel about the Covid vaccines. As someone currently trying for a baby, the issues around menstrual cycles changing for some women after the vaccines also worries me.

I'm discussing the reduction in hospitalisations, even with the terror surrounding Delta, as it highlights the little risk it seems I would pose to healthy vaccinated friends. But again, I understand it is there right to make their own personal decision about this.

[/quote]
The vaccine does not protect my DS from hospitalisation, or indeed death.

Actually i don’t think it’s as black and white as that. I think it would depend on the consequences of saving those thousands of lives and whether the people whose lives you saved would die within a few months of something else.

Ugh. An awful lot of people have died who would not have died within a few months. An awful lot, many more than have been affected by accidents in the home or the other non Covid deaths you mention. (What would the cut off be, incidentally? How long would someone's prognosis have to be before they were allowed treatment in your scenario? Who would predict their life expectancy?)

[quote FindYourPorpoise]@XenoBitch

Out of interest, why do all your friends know you're not getting the vaccine? You see it as a medical procedure, which people generally consider sensitive and private, so why tell them? [/quote]
Some don't know I have not had it as it has never come up in conversation. I know they have had it as they have it plastered all over their FB. Others have asked, and that is how they find out.

This is a global issue and not one that will be solved by one country alone.

So you're not suggesting that the British govt and nhs base their decisions around problems that don't happen here? Cos i don't get the relevance of US gun violence on a thread about vaccination and Covid treatment in the UK.

@XenoBitch

It sounds like you're almost as judgemental of your friends as you say they are about you.

I'm sorry OP but I am with your friends on this. Just as you have the choice about being vaccinated, so your friends have the choice about how much risk they are prepared to take socialising with people who aren't vaccinated. Some may decide it's too great a risk to take.
If you read the many threads on here about people not wanting to be vaccinated, you will see that many people find it selfish not to be vaccinated through choice. If your friends see it that way, then maybe they don't think you're the person they thought you were. Not being nasty here, just honest to try to help you understand possible reasons for your friends' reactions. Your choice of course but then you need to accept the consequences.

[quote FindYourPorpoise]@XenoBitch

It sounds like you're almost as judgemental of your friends as you say they are about you. [/quote]
Eh? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
I simply said that some of my friends don't know my vaccine status as it has never come up in conversation. And the ones that ask, I tell them. Some had to shield etc so are understandably nervous. I have no issue with meeting them outside or something if it helps them to feel safe.
Not sure how that is judging them.

It's as if nothing else mattered at that point in time, except Covid deaths.

What mattered was keeping the NHS going, keeping other essential services going and saving as many lives as possible. Luckily they made the right choice, a bit slow maybe, but if anyone actually said, "hey Boris, don't lock down because accidents at home might go up and everyone who's at risk of dying from Covid would have died soon anyway", it was thankfully ignored.

@MarshaBradyo but hospitalisations have been low for months - even before we finished double vaxxing the vulnerable never mind anyone else.

@HSHorror

I dont call 40% of people vaxxed double AZ with delta getting it low amount of breakthrough. It's almost half still get it. ! It's likely why the cases are sky high.

What?? Where did you read this?

[quote roguetomato]@bumbleymummy interesting article for you.

Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza: a nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study[/quote]
Thanks. Is there something in particular you wanted to draw my attention to? Is this in response to a particular post?

@bumbleymummy

What do you do during flu season?

This. Flu and Covid is different.

I’m not willing to take the risk of the vaccine, however minuscule that may be, for the greater good.

You’re happy for others to take the ‘minuscule risk’ to protect themselves (and others) meaning you don’t have to, but are berating them for not exposing themselves to the risk of catching Covid from you? No wonder they see you as someone they’d rather avoid.

I think this says more about your friends than you, OP. Maybe you've found out something about who they are that you didn't know before, even if only that they are more anxious or scared than the norm. I wonder if they've exhibited judgementalism or bigotry in other areas, though?

Personally, I don't ask vaccine status as it's none of my business and in any case I simply don't care. I certainly would not act any different around an unvaxxed friend.

@Bovrilly

Actually i don’t think it’s as black and white as that. I think it would depend on the consequences of saving those thousands of lives and whether the people whose lives you saved would die within a few months of something else.

Ugh. An awful lot of people have died who would not have died within a few months. An awful lot, many more than have been affected by accidents in the home or the other non Covid deaths you mention. (What would the cut off be, incidentally? How long would someone's prognosis have to be before they were allowed treatment in your scenario? Who would predict their life expectancy?)

Yes. I was simply responding to the idea that people will always choose to save a higher number of lives and I don’t agree, I think the length of natural life remaining along with the impact of what is required to save them are relevant.

It’s not my scenario btw. It’s a concept that’s factored into lots of public health decisions.

www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/4427

[quote bumbleymummy]@MarshaBradyo but hospitalisations have been low for months - even before we finished double vaxxing the vulnerable never mind anyone else.[/quote]
They are low but cases are about to go up by a lot

So someone with data has figured out risk to 40s with one dose and said wait

I’d go with people with data over what we know

@roguetomato that was a question to someone who said a mild infection could kill her child. I’m wondering if they have to isolate every year.

@XenoBitch the 'plastered it all over their FB' bit sounded a tad judgemental to me.

Just don't discuss it with people if you see it as a private medical decision.

@MarshaBradyo my last post to you was in response to this:

Yes but vaccinating vulnerable whilst very effective doesn’t get us within capacity.

We have been within capacity for months - even without double vaccinating the most vulnerable groups and with schools going back, restrictions being eased etc.

[quote FindYourPorpoise]@XenoBitch the 'plastered it all over their FB' bit sounded a tad judgemental to me.

Just don't discuss it with people if you see it as a private medical decision. [/quote]
Hardly. It is an observation. Photos of their card, the FB frames etc. It is everywhere.

I don't discuss with them. I never bring it up... they do.

[quote bumbleymummy]@MarshaBradyo my last post to you was in response to this:

Yes but vaccinating vulnerable whilst very effective doesn’t get us within capacity.

We have been within capacity for months - even without double vaccinating the most vulnerable groups and with schools going back, restrictions being eased etc.[/quote]
Yes we have but we still have restrictions and without them there would be the problem. So you can just vaccinate vulnerable but I’d prefer to live without any restrictions so for that it’s the vaccine to majority.

We’re really close though which I’m pleased about

I was simply responding to the idea that people will always choose to save a higher number of lives and I don’t agree, I think the length of natural life remaining along with the impact of what is required to save them are relevant.

And I was simply making the point that it doesn't really add to your argument against lockdown because thousands and thousands of people died who were not terminally ill or at the average life expectancy. The average YLL was 10 years per person in the UK. That's a lot of people who had more than a few months to live.