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.

As usual, this thread started with a disingenuous " I am nervous about taking the vaccine" and resulted in the usual whopping lies by vaccine refusers ( if I am not allowed to call them anti-vaxxers):
The vaccine does not help reduce transmission ( untrue)
Immunity from the virus is as good as that from the vaccine ( untrue).
People who take the vaccine are selfish bcos Indians do not have enough ( I am Indian btw and this is utter BS)

XenoBitch

Considering people who don't want this vaccine get labelled as stupid and uneducated, how on earth do you expect them to have an answer for this?”

Or perhaps some label people who don’t want this vaccine as stupid and uneducated because they seem unable to offer an answer for this.

Some people really are interested in hearing what you believe is a workable alternative(s). Please, what do you believe it is/they are?

@bumbleymummy

Intentions don’t stop someone getting ill if you’re not immune.

Well they might if the person they come into contact with had been vaccinated which meant they didn't catch it and pass it on.

If you seriously believe that intentions and outcomes are not linked then I assume you think the entire basis of our legal system is also wrong?

Hit someone while drunk driving down an dark road with no lights on? I guess you might have hit them anyway, even if you had taken every precaution available.

@singingstones our ‘leftover’ vaccines are supposed to go to poorer countries. Although I think it would be a great idea to give people the option to actively donate their dose.

@worktrip. Have you stopped to think how horrible you sound. Moving away from your poor collegue like she is some toxic timebomb. It is completely ridiculous and some people are being completely irrational on here. She is no more of a threat to you now than she was last year pre-vaccines. She would need to be carrying the virus to pass it anyway and if she isnt unwell it is highly unlikely that she is.

@FindYourPorpoise

Well they might if the person they come into contact with had been vaccinated which meant they didn't catch it and pass it on.

Sigh. We’re talking about vaccinated people who are not immune and so can still catch and transmit it. So, no, their intention made no difference if they still made someone ill.

@bumbleymummy

But if everyone around them is also vaccinated, it's less likely they would catch it, or, if they did, pass it on. This is how herd immunity works.

Immunity from the virus is as good as that from the vaccine

Are you the person who linked to a study yesterday saying that it showed that the vaccine offered longer protection than infection induced immunity? It didn’t actually show that.

Are you then ok with longer restrictions?

Again, you’re assuming we would still need restrictions when the people who the restrictions were there for have been doubled vaxxed.

[quote FindYourPorpoise]@bumbleymummy

But if everyone around them is also vaccinated, it's less likely they would catch it, or, if they did, pass it on. This is how herd immunity works. [/quote]
I think you need to read back a few posts and see what this conversation was about.

I thought you only got immunity to a particular strain? So you might have caught the Kent variant, but that doesn’t protect you against the Indian variant?

@bumbleymummy

Are you then ok with longer restrictions?

Again, you’re assuming we would still need restrictions when the people who the restrictions were there for have been doubled vaxxed.

Again you’re ignoring what the government did

Did they delay or not?

It doesn’t matter if you think they were wrong you still had to live with the restrictions, as did everyone else.

I don’t know if they were right or wrong but I don’t won’t to be restricted further. My own view on data doesn’t grant that I’m unaffected nor does it you.

Do you really not get this?

It’s so hard to talk to people who are just posting the same thing over without actually listening.

when the people who the restrictions were there for have been doubled vaxxed.

And you keep assuming that vaccine efficacy is high enough to solve all problems among this cohort by their vaccines alone.

It isn’t. This has been pointed out to you many times. There will be breakthrough infections (serious) if levels among the community are high enough, which other adults getting vaxxed can mitigate against.

@bumbleymummy

I have read back, you seem to suggest that there is no distinction between unvaccinated people and people who have been vaccinated but are not immune because the potential outcomes are the same. I disagree with you.

@bumbleymummy

Out of interest, why do you think the government is offering vaccines to all adults rather than just vulnerable groups?

I don’t get why it’s so important to people that only vulnerable are vaccinated.

It’s not like it’s mandatory for them to have it.

What is driving the reiteration of something not based on the data that is being assessed and used

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I thought you only got immunity to a particular strain? So you might have caught the Kent variant, but that doesn’t protect you against the Indian variant?

This totally

My friend had kent variant at Christmas and wasn’t that poorly but is now very ill with Delta (4th week in bed , 48 otherwise v healthy and is a PT so v healthy lifestyle and fit)

@bumbleymummy
Do you know anything about vaccines?
Do you know why we still bother to do polio vaccinations in this country?

What is driving the reiteration of something not based on the data that is being assessed and used

It was based on data. The JCVI made their decision to prioritise those people in the top 9 groups because they accounted for ~99% of the deaths and ~86% of the hospitalisations.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I thought you only got immunity to a particular strain? So you might have caught the Kent variant, but that doesn’t protect you against the Indian variant?

No, there appears to be some crossover protection between strains. It’s why incidence of reinfection has remained low despite new VOC.

@bumbleymummy

What is driving the reiteration of something not based on the data that is being assessed and used

It was based on data. The JCVI made their decision to prioritise those people in the top 9 groups because they accounted for ~99% of the deaths and ~86% of the hospitalisations.

Whoever made the decision read data which resulted in delay. So they wouldn’t agree with your take.

Then when you look at countries across the world they wouldn’t either.

I know some posters like to think they alone know what to do above all others but going against pretty much every scientific collective takes commitment.

Anyway I can see even with above you’ll keep posting only vulnerable need to be vaccinated. Hopefully no one will act based on that as their risk is most definitely not zero, for hospitalisation.

@blue12345

Op, has anything that's been said in the hundreds of posts on this thread changed the way you view your friend's behaviour towards you?

I only know of two couples in my wider circle who are anti-lockdown and presumably not having the vaccine.

One couple both work in pharmaceuticals and I would be genuinely interested to hear their reasoning as I was quite surprised.

The other couple both work in alternative (one is a chiropractor) therapies and I know their views as they've been all over Facebook with it. They have actually put across some interesting and quite persuasive viewpoints.

It makes no difference as to how I view them and I would gladly give them a hug when I see them.

OP your arguments at the beginning of the thread did come across as a bit "happy for you all to take the risk but thanks to you I don't have to so cheers for that". That might change how I look at you not your actual decision. If one is going to make what is construed as a controversial decision, sometimes you're going to have to justify it and that particular argument wouldn't cut it with me.

My father and his brother were both conscientious objectors during WW2. They were absolutely not cowards and were not afraid to die for King and Country (and indeed both had very dangerous roles) but they were not prepared to kill another human being and both were court-martialled and had to justify it.

I am immensely proud of them both but I have to admit it's a good thing not everyone thought like that.

I haven’t said that anyone’s risk is zero for hospitalisation. The point of the restrictions was to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed. Even with restrictions people were still hospitalised but at more manageable levels. If we vaccinate the vulnerable groups that accounted for the vast majority of hospitalisations then we don’t need restrictions to keep hospital levels manageable. I know some people keep clinging to them but they weren’t supposed to be a long term solution.

As I said before, I think the delay was to ensure that the vaccine was holding up against the delta variant in those vulnerable people. We didn’t see a massive increase in hospitalisations so clearly it’s doing its job. Now we just need people to step back a bit from The Fear.

@bumbleymummy

I haven’t said that anyone’s risk is zero for hospitalisation. The point of the restrictions was to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed. Even with restrictions people were still hospitalised but at more manageable levels. If we vaccinate the vulnerable groups that accounted for the vast majority of hospitalisations then we don’t need restrictions to keep hospital levels manageable. I know some people keep clinging to them but they weren’t supposed to be a long term solution.

As I said before, I think the delay was to ensure that the vaccine was holding up against the delta variant in those vulnerable people. We didn’t see a massive increase in hospitalisations so clearly it’s doing its job. Now we just need people to step back a bit from The Fear.

You just have to look at age groups every country that has supplies is vaccinating.

No one has chosen your route. Even those with very good health care systems.

If you can’t get past the next thing you say - oh what about developing world how selfish - and actually look at what’s going on then how can you be looking at the whole picture realistically?