Has anyone else pulled back/ended friendships with unvaccinated friends?

[mowly77]

This feels right to me but I’m not sure how she’s going to take it, & wondered if anyone else had similar experiences? I’m fully vaccinated; but antibody test tells me I’ve had covid in last 6 months. I’m ill a lot - crappy immune system. Really sick this last week, rivers of snot, endless coughing. My DD is at nursery & had milder version first. I get everything she gets. Could be covid again; could not be. Either way I’m bloody ill & self employed so lost loads of money. Fed up of being ill all the time.

Recent friendship with someone & we’ve been working on my allotment together. She’s a bit lonely, single mum, now wants to be my BFF & invited me & DD to her DS birthday (big) party in a few weeks - indoors. She’s cheerfully told me she’s unvaccinated. Didn’t really sink in before. I’ve been in her car; she’s been round for a cuppa a few times.

Now I’m fretting; plus thinking how idiotically selfish she is. I’m going to tell her no more indoor stuff, no birthday party. Outdoor allotment socially distanced is fine.

This winter is going to be a car crash & I don’t have any more truck with it. I know I’m not BU but it still feels like a delicate line.

Being friendly with some and they invite you and your kid to their kids birthday party doesn't mean she wasn't to be you're bestie.

I think she should avoid you to be honest.

When you cancel the party be honest with her about why your not going

OP I am in the same boat as you, chronic neutropenia (2 when the lowest normal is 4) after chemo 20 years ago now. I have friends with higher wbc counts than me who were told to shield so I have been careful throughout. Do you know your wbc? However the research is showing that people with our immune problems are not proving especially vulnerable to Covid (reported on the Mayo clinic website). I found out last summer that I have antibodies probably from early March 2020 when DC lost their sense of taste and smell but I had no symptoms and I am part of a study into why some people get it asymptomatically /severely which is focusing on DNA ie genetic factors because all the other factors, lifestyle, socio economic status are not adding up to the full picture (it’s the React /genome U.K. study). I don’t get especially ill with other things either but then I am not much exposed to the little virus / germ Petrie dishes that are children these days. So I hope that is a bit reassuring, and ignore the natural immunity / vitamin C twerps, high dose vitamin C actually lowers my wbc! Natural immunity is way more complicated and individual than that (and I do take supplements but not so stupid as to not realise that I am probably just pissing them out again)

As to your friend I think I would want to know her reasons but I would certainly be only seeing her outside. However if she is a science denier then I really doubt I would want to carry on with a friendship. My DC is a research scientist and has worked long hours throughout the pandemic involved in the testing and vaccination initiatives risking Covid on their hour commute each day. I would not be interested in a friendship with someone who calls into question the validity of their work, let alone thinks they are in the pay of Bill Gates or some global conspiracy.

And yes I do know that a few of her scientists friends have cut off friendships and even in one case a serious relationship with people who have fallen down the anti vax wormhole. It is just not sustainable to have people questioning your vocation with misinformation, in the end it is personally insulting.

Yabu

@mowly77 you sound very sensible and I too would be sticking to outdoor meetups in that situation.

Apologies for source, but the graph of PHE data in this article is useful.

Even more useful is reading what PHE have actually said about those figures and how they should be used.

The vaccination status of cases, inpatients and deaths is not the most appropriate method to assess vaccine effectiveness and there is a high risk of misinterpretation. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is described earlier in this report.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016465/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_36.pdf

(To understand the limitations with the data, particularly as the datasets get smaller, the ‘NIMS or ONS as the denominator’ debate on Twitter and elsewhere is a fascinating rabbithole. I can understand why they’re using NIMS but it’s one very good reason not to elevate this data above others.

I dont base my friendships on their medical history 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Blessex

Luckily all my friends are vaccinated…..I have also chosen well educated friends.

I could not imagine choosing friends based on how educated they are.

@Blessex

You have a strange view of things. I have friends that have had the best education you can. I have friends that left school with no qualifications. I have friends in the middle. I love them all the same and I will never judge them on their education or medical status because I like who they are and them individually.

I don't choose my friends based on their vaccination status, I can't imagine ever doing so. But I wouldn't choose to put myself in situations I didn't feel happy with, and would decline the party invitation in your shoes.

@SweetBabyCheeses99

I’m so confused. You’ve been “fully vaccinated”, whatever that means. Your friend hasn’t, which usually means she’s actually has all her other vaccinations but has decided to wait for this emergency one for now. But yet you’re the one who’s really sickly all the time. And this is somehow her fault?!

You couldn’t make this up could you.

You're so confused... That would probably be because, despite this pandemic going on as long as it has and vaccines being available for as long as they have, you have not managed to catch the most basic of facts.

For example, "fully vaccinated" means the OP has had her two spaced covid-19 vaccines. It is not an "emergency one" - it is a legitimate vaccine, tested, approved and used all over the world, regardless of which particular brand or format it is in, AZ or Pfizer, etc.

Right now, heading towards a winter surge, with a high level of the more transmissible Delta variant about, is not a good time to "wait" for a vaccine.

Vaccinated people pass on less virus...

I cannot believe you have blamed the OP for her medical condition. That is a new low for antivaxers.

I dont base my friendships on their medical history-? Neither does OP but in a situation where she wants to reduce potential exposure, as someone with immune problems, to a potentially serious infection that is rife at the moment, someone who hasn’t vaccinated is, as others have highlighted, a threat. Also if they don’t care that their decision, if based on science denial, as opposed to not having that choice, have implications for friends the rest of us have a right to decide whether or not we think that friendship is worth the potential consequences or indeed whether we have any respect for that decision and want their friendship. Personally I wouldn’t but it hasn’t been an issue, we have all, family, friends, all socio economic groups, ethnicities and politics , and educational levels rushed to the opportunity.

If you haven’t stop feeling sorry for yourselves, you are the minority who have chosen not to contribute to the majority effort to reduce the impact of this virus . If that means society has less room for you live with it, that is your decision, not ours…..

@Thewiseoneincognito False.

If you are vaccinated you are less likely to get covid in the first place, and if you don’t have covid you obviously can’t pass it on.

What was her reason? Honestly, I couldn't be fucked being mates with an antivaxx nut job. We have fundamentally different opinions and that decision for me is a moral one.

Depends, if there's a good reason for her not to have it (a good reason in my opinion obviously) then it would seem a bit harsh. If her reasoning make me think that she's a bit crazy that would put me off being friends - I probably wouldn't ask, of its the second I'm sure she'd volunteer the information before too long

My unvaccinated friend is deffo ‘smarter’ than me. She’s got a PHD & is a lecturer in some science field.

If I picked to be friends with her because she’s well educated, well, it failed in finding me vaccinated ones 😂

Her reason is that she doesn’t want to protect herself from something that’ll probably be mild to her. She currently has covid, so we’ll see if her opinion changes. So far, she’s fine, just under the weather. So I doubt it will.

I wouldn’t end a friendship over it if based on a medical decision rather than conspiracy theories but I’d likely only meet them outdoors.
I have pulled back from a few friendships during covid when some decided the rules didn’t apply to them.

My best friend is not vaccinated and yes, she is well educated. We are in fact both HCPs. However she has made a choice based on what she thinks is right for her body, I am not going to let that interfere with our friendship. She has had a fair bit of abuse about it from other friends mind you!

Bobholi I somehow doubt your friend’s science field has anything to do with Virology, epidemiology or any of the relevant areas of scientific expertise to understanding Covid and the vaccination initiative. Although as my DCs scientist friend said on the BBC we have all become experts in virology now so that we can contribute to the effort to minimise Covid. But “Science” is a wide school, there is even a creationist plant biologist at Kew trying to disprove Darwin and prove that there was an Adam and Eve so without a doubt you get allsorts of crazy.

The fact she has Covid does however demonstrate why people might want to avoid the unvaccinated though, doesn’t it? The fact she has it mildly does not mean that anyone catching it from her will does it? It’s a luck of the genes and other risk factors…..

Vangosunflowers I wouldn’t be friends with someone who called other people “mental”. I do have friends who suffer life threatening mental illness, it is ignorant and offensive to use that term in a derogatory way.

I see the OP’s point. If you’re unvaccinated you’re more likely to pass on Covid, obviously the double jabbed still can but studies show they shed less viral load so it’s not as easy.

My main issue would be the reasons why she’s unvaccinated, if it’s being down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories I’d give a very wide berth because at a deeper level we wouldn’t be compatible friendship wise. If it’s for any other reason ie health reasons then it’d be fine.

And it’s horrible to be constantly ill- OP you have my sympathy and get why you want to avoid it, it’s miserable.

It wouldn't cross my mind to end a friendship over this. It's her choice. Your daughter and her nursery friends are a bigger risk here surely?

@Emilyontmoor

"If you haven’t stop feeling sorry for yourselves, you are the minority who have chosen not to contribute to the majority effort to reduce the impact of this virus . If that means society has less room for you live with it, that is your decision, not ours….."

How very divisive. Less room? I wouldn't want to share anything with you. Your rude and have a bad attitude.