What I don't understand about anti-vaxxers is...

[CanadianJohn]

What I don't understand about anti-vaxxers is how malevolent some of them are. If I decided I didn't want a covid jab, I certainly wouldn't picket hospitals and health centres. Recently an elected legislator in Manitoba faced a demonstration of about 30 people at her home, and someone left a noose on her lawn. www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/health/alberta-politician-angry-after-covid-19-protesters-leave-gallows-noose-at-her-house-575661242.html

A recent news story on booster jabs provoked dozens of responses poking fun at "sheeple" and referencing Big Phama and similar themes.

Why are so many people so vitriolic about the vaccine?

@bumbleymummy as I said I don’t see much point in quoting statistics from a trail that is no longer useful. Delta variant is very different as we have seen, we have no idea how long the immunity lasts with this variant so just guessing at this stage, snd as this variant now makes up 90 something percent of all cases it really doesn’t seem a good idea to trust your health with a guess. If we could all do proper antibody tests then yes, maybe this would be a way forward.

@SickAndTiredAgain

I think it’s a few things (and I’ll add that I volunteered for the vaccine trails, volunteered at vaccine centres and had mine as soon as offered so I don’t agree with any anti-vaccine arguments).

Firstly I guess if you did truly genuinely think it was dangerous, I mean really dangerous, you might feel like you had to protest, especially against children having it. If you really believed you were right and that it was going to kill people, I can see how some people with that view would consider it a moral obligation to speak out against it.

The sheeple comments and mocking people who’ve had the vaccine I think is more a need to reinforce their own views. And also demonstrate how clever they are that they’ve not being sucked in and haha all you idiots have.

And then when it comes to discussions around conditions being placed on society based on vaccine status, again I can see why people would be furious if they really thought it was dangerous and felt they were being forced into it. I’d be furious if I felt the government was forcing me to take medication I honestly believed was dangerous.

And then some people are just arseholes.

And you have to remember that plenty of people who don’t want the vaccine aren’t like this. There’ll be people just quietly not having it, but you’ll get very vocal people in any group.

Thanks for all the replies... this is the one that resonates most with me.

Further to my original post, an Ottawa doctor who runs a vaccination clinic has received a creditable death threat, and vehicles in the clinic car park have had their tyres slashed.

Today, 75-100 anti-vax protesters disrupted a Remembrance Day ceremony in Kelona BC.

As someone said upthread. maybe these people are just plain nuts.

The problem is, by then it may be too late to stop it. Israel, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Australia, Canada and France are examples
America too, and it will happen here.
I am really concerned about the acceptance of all of this. It's worldwide, does no one ask themselves why?

I don't really understand why there can't be an alternative for healthcare staff who don't want to be vaccinated of wearing more PPE? And / or doing lateral flows every day. I know lat flows aren't perfect (high false neg rate) but the two together (and perhaps weekly or biweekly PCRs) should offer as much protection as vaccination I'd think.

Whilst I am extremely pro-vaccine and I'd take the booster of any HCP who doesn't want it in a heartbeat, I am also concerned about civil liberties.

And I don't quite understand why on the one hand the government is letting covid rip in schools, creating a very high exposure environment and advocating 'personal responsibility' (which is impossible really if your kids has to go into a school with no mitigations) and then mandating vaccines for HCPs who are presumably rather more likely than most to understand the implications of their personal responsibility towards their patients.

It seems very unfair to expect HCPs to do this in part to compensate for the lack of mitigations everywhere else in society. If we'd kept covid rates much lower through community mitigations then everyone would be safer.

And for those patients travelling to and from hospital on public transport, or shopping in Sainsburys, their risk from all the maskless people there (who are out and about despite living with people with active covid) will be multiple times higher than from a fully PPE wearing HCP.

am also concerned about civil liberties.

Join me in my Freedom For Smokers (To Boost The Tax Coffers) campaign.

Civil liberties. Hmmm. Funny how the concern seems to centre only around the 'right' to put the vulnerable at unnecessary increased risk.

Civil liberties. It's ok to 'live with' a disease that kills and disables, but there is no civil liberty to choose a good death in the UK. Why are assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal (in the UK)?

Why are certain drugs (but not the most deadly - alcohol) illegal?

Where is the civil liberty and freeedom there?

We do not live in a free society.

As if 'they' can't track and trace everybody already if they wished to. We give every bit of our personal information to mortgage lenders and landlords. The latter is completely unregulated, no DBS checks, no financial checks.

Google, Apple, Microsoft. All know pretty everything about us. Every single time we go online 'they' can track us.

Online banking. Contactless payments. Reward cards.

Unless you live completely off grid, 'they' can already track you. Bored to death by most of our mundane lives, maybe, but it's already here regardless of whether or not we mitigate against a deadly virus.

A vaccine passport changes nothing in the 'civil liberties' issues. It does however potentially save lives, health, and the economy.

Meanwhile I didn't realise jobs were primarily to give someone a livelihood. It used to be the case that jobs had specific requirements.

Goodo. I'll let DP's cousin know. He's recently been struggling a little with his eyesight. It's starting to affect his driving. He was going to reluctantly inform the DVLA.

But... He's in need of a new job - a livelihood. He can apply as an HGV driver. Doesn't matter that he's unable to safely drive. There's a shortage of drivers. As long as he drives, who cares whether it's safe driving.

Civil liberties innit. The sector needs workers, and he has a right to a livelihood.

Civil liberties. Hmmm. Funny how the concern seems to centre only around the 'right' to put the vulnerable at unnecessary increased risk

You have a vaccine that protects you. What else do you need?

Civil liberties. It's ok to 'live with' a disease that kills and disables

We have to. It’s endemic now, we cannot eradicate it.

but there is no civil liberty to choose a good death in the UK

I agree this should be an option for ppl

Tealightsandd are you cool with what's happening in Lithuania then?

Lithuania has banned unvaccinated MPs from voting, btw
www.euronews.com/2021/11/12/latvia-bans-unvaccinated-mps-from-voting-and-suspends-pay

The unvaccinated can no longer work in Lithuania, or enter any shops at all bar small corner shop type establishments.

Latvia and Lithuania are separate countries.

Are you in support of the measures those countries are taking?

And no, I'm not 'cool: with what's happening - the high hospitalisations. But good for them for trying to make things better - taking sensible life, health, and economy saving measures.

Not true btw, your misinformation that those refusing the vaccine can't work there. They are doing a temporary lockdown with other mitigations, in order to tackle the out of control infection rates. Their hospitals can't cope.

The public health agency noted that the hospital admission and occupancy rates in Latvia over the past week were among the highest in the 31 countries in the EU/EEA region.

Leading by example. What's wrong with that? I admire it.

From November 15, an MP will be entitled to participate in the work of the Saeima [Latvia's Parliament] only if he or she has presented an interoperable COVID-19 certificate confirming the fact of vaccination or illness

They are doing a temporary lockdown with other mitigations

Ah, so there are end dates then?

Leading by example. What's wrong with that? I admire it

These are elected MPs. If you block them from voting, you disenfranchised their constituents.

@MaxNormal

Leading by example. What's wrong with that? I admire it

These are elected MPs. If you block them from voting, you disenfranchised their constituents.

The unvaccinated MPs disenfranchise their voters, I think you mean. Temporarily.

No, I don't mean that. I mean the ruling disenfranchised the voters. And I'm starting to wonder if there's anything some people won't justify in the name of covid.
Temporarily, of course.

Netherlands going back into lockdown, completely scuppering any argument that high vaxx rates gets you out of this. So can we please stop blaming the unvaxxed?

Depressing, at this point we need to accept it’s endemic and think of it like a bad flu.

Countries would need to lock down much sooner, and with stricter measures, if there was not a height level of vaccination in the population.

Vaccination has weakened the link between case numbers and hospital admissions by a large amount (ninefold?) and it is admissions numbers that will lead to lockdowns (indicator that health services could be overwhelmed)

It's concerning that the Netherlands has reached that point this early in the winter.

We really are relying on the vaccine effect in reducing severity to avoid lockdown here.

@UsedUpUsername

Netherlands going back into lockdown, completely scuppering any argument that high vaxx rates gets you out of this. So can we please stop blaming the unvaxxed?

Depressing, at this point we need to accept it’s endemic and think of it like a bad flu.

Where is their booster programme up to?

There barely is a booster program apart from immunosupressed I believe. Over 80s staring in December.

@Trixiefirecracker

Because anti-vaxxers are nuts?

This.

@MaxNormal

No, I don't mean that. I mean the ruling disenfranchised the voters. And I'm starting to wonder if there's anything some people won't justify in the name of covid. Temporarily, of course.

Apparently not.

And I'm starting to wonder if there's anything some people won't justify in the name of covid.

Yep with you there. Some people (more in the UK than anywhere else) seem to think it's perfectly fine to stand back and let Covid kill hundreds of (Other) people per day - and disable many more.

We all have different morals, I guess.

Re The Netherlands. Am I right in thinking they used the still good but not as effective Astrazeneca for their over 60s?

Add in waning immunity.

They need to get on with mRNA boosting.

And of course it won't go on forever (which is another false 'justification' for the "let Other People's bodies pile up high' brigade.

We already have two new antivirals. Both showing great promise in treating Covid and preventing hospitalisation and death in the vulnerable.

There are also the monoclonal antibodies that America has been using since last year, and also used by other countries including Australia. We have some too, I believe, although at present only limited stock.

Early stages and very limited supplies for now. But in time more will become available (and possibly other successful treatments).

We absolutely do not have to 'live with' huge numbers of Other People being killed or disabled under the pretence of there being no end in sight.