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.

@HerrenaHarridan

I got the vaccine to protect other people first and foremost.

It’s a tiny risk to me (as well as a big benefit if course) as a healthy adult and I see it as my social duty to get it as a healthy person to help protect those who can’t have it.

I know that altruistic kind of behaviour is foreign to some people but maybe don’t shout about it so loudly if you want people to think well of you

Fortunately judging by the vaccine uptake rates more people veer on the side of pro-social behaviour... and thank fuck for that

🏅Here you go dear. Is this what you were looking for?

@Bovrilly

I honestly think that some people aren't capable of doing something for others, especially people they don't know. You see it often on various threads. If you can't compute doing something for the greater good, it must not ring true when people say that's what they're doing. So you look for other reasons, usually sheeple, MSM / govt propaganda, not doing research, being frightened of Covid. (Which is actually a good reason to have the vaccine even if you don't have any feelings of social responsibility.)

BS. I do plenty for other people. It’s ridiculous to make sweeping judgements about people based on whether or not they have a vaccine. How blinkered are you?

Me not having the vaccine does not mean I have answers for what should be done

And there we have it 🤷🏻‍♀️“You can do it if you want. That doesn’t mean I have to contribute. I can opt out because I’m relying on you muppets to keep me safe. Plus I can call you out as being sheeples. Go me!”

Fuck off! @XenoBitch. Apt name btw.

The problem is that to return to normal the vaccination rate needs to be higher ....

Unfortunately it's not just a personal decision.

We are in all sorts of trouble in Australia and I do think badly of people that won't vaccinate as ultimately if enough people don't our borders won't open and I won't see my family again... not quite the same in the Uk but vaccination truly is our only way out.

@Micemakingclothes same here. I’m caring for a vulnerable adult. She has a hole in her stomach which is packed daily by district nurse. She’s had a large section of bowel removed, stitched back and is incontinent - recently stopped passing blood. Can you imagine if she caught Covid right now? Not only that - but if the district nurse was infected and then visited the other vulnerable adults on her rounds? I have to be so careful. I am excluding myself from various things - but I can’t be around people who are against vaccines/masks and restrictions.

Your last couple of posts are very defensive bumblemummy can’t think why. I doubt it’s actually sinking in that your selfish attitude is abhorrent to most

mrsplum2015

Isn’t Australia’s problem that they are takin so much time vaccinating people.

I think they aren’t expecting to vaccinate everyone by next spring or summer. But after 3-4 months the vaccine needs a booster.

Dh had his 2nd at the end of May and has been told to go back at the end of August/beginning of September for his booster

I don't understand why people are asking you.
The only people I know who are vaccinated have offered the information. I don't care otherwise and don't see how it's anybody else business.

BS. I do plenty for other people. It’s ridiculous to make sweeping judgements about people based on whether or not they have a vaccine. How blinkered are you?

No need to be touchy, I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, just musing on why people get scoffed at for being afraid of Covid / not doing their own research / being sheeple etc when they explain quite clearly that they chose to be vaccinated because they think it's the responsible thing to do.

You see it fairly often on here, people not understanding altruistic motives and thinking they can't be true. I wasn't even talking about vaccination in particular, there are arguments on threads about education and politics that show the same thing.

Although since you mention it, this post by you is an example of not accepting someone's altruistic motives.

*I got the vaccine to protect other people first and foremost.
*
🏅Here you go dear. Is this what you were looking for?

Sorry meant to tag @bumbleymummy

@pyjamams13

I would try not to worry too much. The media has made out that vaccine uptake is high but I know lots of people who haven't had it and will not be getting it.

Those two statements are not incompatible.

Vaccine uptake IS high - the media are not making that out (or up), they are simply reporting the statistics: 86.9% of adults have had a first dose so far.

That still leaves 13.1% of adults, close to 7 million people, who have not had it. You are among them and know some of the others.

Human psychology is very interesting, one of its features being that people tend to cluster with others of a like mind. And then they reinforce one another’s thinking. Of the people I know whose vaccine status I know, only one has not had it, and that is on medical advice.

People who choose not to have the vaccine are likely to know other people who have also chosen not to have it. In both groups, people are likely to have influenced one another’s choices by talking about their own.

This is why, when OP finds herself the outlier in a group who mostly choose to have the vaccine, she is coming under social pressure. I imagine the same applies the other way - there are groups where the person who wants to have the vaccine is being pressured by others not to have it. Some random people on the internet have given me dire warnings of all the ill effects I’m going to suffer over time because of it. Until I drop dead in two years, or whatever it’s supposed to be.

@PuzzledObserver - I think I could understand vaccine refusal if the reasoning behind it made sense. Or if there was refusal, but then an acceptance that more care might need needed or would be taken in other areas of life.
But I don’t see that. I often see minimisation, denial, refusal to abide by any guideline to help control the infection rate.
That is just so incredibly frustrating for others.
And of the groups coercing others not to have it - I’ve seen some particularly awful far right video hosting platforms linked on Mumsnet, with discredited science. I’m not saying the people who link it are far right - but it could be the path into a particularly dark rabbit hole.

@UndercoverToad I agree it is frustrating, but at the end of the day, does it matter why someone has made that decision?

You either accept it and leave them be, or you demand that they explain it to your satisfaction. The latter course tends to get people’s backs up.

If someone is declining the vaccine and also not taking mitigating measures, there will be some sort of internal logic about it, although they may not be conscious of it themselves. You have to decide where you want to put your energy - persuading them to change their views and behaviour, or protecting yourself from it. The course of demanding they explain themselves is not terribly fruitful, IMO. It is unlikely to lead them to change their thinking, because they will perceive the questioning as an attack, and immediately put up their defences.

@sleepwouldbenice

Your last couple of posts are very defensive bumblemummy can’t think why. I doubt it’s actually sinking in that your selfish attitude is abhorrent to most

Not defensive. I have nothing to defend myself against. Your accusations of being selfish mean little to me. As I said before, I think it would be more selfish of me to take a vaccine I don’t want or need just so I can go on holiday or something when there are hcps and vulnerable people in other countries going without.

As much as people claim that they’re doing this for altruistic reasons, they’ve mainly done it because they’re either afraid of COVID themselves (but maybe don’t want to admit it) or they want to be able to do something like going on holiday. So it’s really the personal benefit that they’re thinking about, not other people.

@PuzzledObserver and it’s not possible to explain to their satisfaction because they can’t accept that people can look at the same information that they did and make a different decision.

I'm going to take exception to this statement @bumbleymummy - I'm not "afraid" of Covid, but like any sensible person, I don't want to get ill and at best lose earnings, or at worst, face something more serious like long covid. That's not fear, its sensible, measured appraisal of the situation. I also don't want to risk passing it on to vulnerable relatives, friends or anyone else in my community where it could have serious consequences for them (either health, financial, or psychological).

As a family, we're not looking to go away on holiday abroad either, so no, getting vaccinated isn't that either.

Fact is, I and most decent people in this country have a sense of collective social responsibility, and are getting vaccinated to help slow down and eventually get this thing under control. It's not out of some self serving motivation that you try and frame it as.

I stand by my point because I think that, for the most part, it is. People don’t tend to go out and get the flu vaccine every year even though it would protect others (and the nhs). Most don’t know whether they are still immune to diseases they may have been vaccinated against in childhood so they could be putting people at risk. Many people had no problem with going into work with coughs and colds and/or sending their children into school dosed up on Calpol even though any of those things could have health/financial/psychological consequences for others. You think everyone’s developed a conscience all of a sudden and they’ll never do any of those things again? I don’t.

@bumbleymummy

and it’s not possible to explain to their satisfaction because they can’t accept that people can look at the same information that they did and make a different decision.

I agree :-)

From talking to a lot of colleagues, friends, school parents etc, almost everyone has said it will make a huge difference how we view the "presenteeism" so prevalent in this country.

If you were really comfortable with your choice you’d be comfortable with the consequences of your choice because they’ve been quite obvious all along.

If you’re not getting the vaccine how can you know with certainty why others do?

That reasoning below was incorrect.

It might make the person feel better in some way but it doesn’t apply to all. As much as they want it to

Honestly why does it matter why people take the vaccine, as long as they take it? To be clear, I have taken it for entirely non altruistic reasons and to protect myself and my DH. Same reason why I take the flu jab every year. And also get tetanus boosters.

But, to repeat for the nth time, Covid is not the flu and cannot be compared to it.

The overriding reason here was because it’s obvious that vaccines will get us out of this cycle of worsening lockdowns / or higher deaths.

To me you’re either helping with that or not.

Holidays and fear of Covid are not driving it

I know it’s said to denigrate but as Mare says who cares, just sounds like a way to feel one up on people.

🏅Here you go dear. Is this what you were looking for?

Not sure who the OPs are in this but it’s nasty.
Most young people are taking vaccines for altruistic reasons. After the 18 months they’ve had, who could blame them if they said up yours to their elders. Most haven’t, though, and I’m very grateful to them.

I agree it’s nasty
People getting more defensive