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?

We all have different morals, I guess

That is unnecessary.

@MaxNormal

We all have different morals, I guess

That is unnecessary.

I think it's a fair comment.

It is a question of how you see society, collective responsibility, and the protection of the most vulnerable (which we are all only one lump away from becoming)

People do indeed have different morals on all those points, and they make their own choices

Alternatively people recognise that most of these mitigations are not cost-free or harm free and feel that it's valid to discuss these. Having one group elevate themselves to the moral position has been entirely unhelpful.

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

No one is saying this. But focussed protection places the vulnerable as the priority and lets the rest of the population get back to normal.

It’s disingenuous to say we don’t know who is vulnerable, we absolutely do and have known for a very long time.

I completely agree with your last two posts Max.

And yours too Used

Focused protection as in great barrington declaration or focused protection meaning some other form of measures? Absolutely agree that pros and cons of all measures should be thought about. Agree also with the morality point - we do all have different morals, and those that agree with PMs approach may/may not share his moral compass too...

@UsedUpUsername

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

No one is saying this. But focussed protection places the vulnerable as the priority and lets the rest of the population get back to normal.

It’s disingenuous to say we don’t know who is vulnerable, we absolutely do and have known for a very long time.

The problem is with the UK strategy that it only considers underlying health vulnerability alone, not vulnerability plus exposure.

Some people are having to work / go to school in environments of very high viral load (as a result of no mitigation). Viral load is directly related to severity of disease, we knew this early in 2020.

Thus, loads of 40 something teachers are being exposed to massive viral loads and 40 something parents of secondary school students. None of whom are eligible for the booster (unless teachers are now?)

I'd been feeling a lot better until all my 40 something double jabbed friends started catching Delta. Several of them now have long covid. The impact on their children is appalling (their parents becoming too ill to properly care for them overnight) and it's not like it's an isolated incident - so many families getting ill from their children catching it in school. Some children badly affected too and I'm sure the viral load is a factor there too. 7 children died of covid in a week recently - how is that ok when mitigations could have kept infections lower in schools and avoided some if not all of those deaths?

Whilst I want my elderly parents protected, they have a much greater ability to avoid exposure to covid than both myself and my husband and my two children. And yet there are literally no protections being offered to us at all, none. While my parents get their boosters.

The NHS is falling over. Just saying we have to carry on isn't working.

@theemperorhasnoclothes

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.

Perhaps cost is a factor. Far cheaper for three jabs than to provide all the extra PPE and tests indefinitely.

The cost of 3 jabs is probably cheaper than high quality PPE, but the cost of ventilation and masks in schools (both of which are cheap) is certainly going to be less than treating all the kids with PIMS, long covid and 40 something parents who are hospitalised, In ICU and those who get long covid too.

So I think cost only applies when it fits with ideology.

@theemperorhasnoclothes

The cost of 3 jabs is probably cheaper than high quality PPE, but the cost of ventilation and masks in schools (both of which are cheap) is certainly going to be less than treating all the kids with PIMS, long covid and 40 something parents who are hospitalised, In ICU and those who get long covid too.

So I think cost only applies when it fits with ideology.

Yep. I don't think they take long covid into consideration.

@theemperorhasnoclothes can you please cite a source for ‘ 7 children died of covid in a week recently’

Yes, week 43 - which is the latest data available week of 29 October.

Download the 2021 data here. 7 children under 19 died of covid 19 in week 43. 1 under 1, 1 1-4, 0 5-9, 2 10-14 and 3 15-19. 7 in one week.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

What I don’t understand about anti vaxxers is that they think they know more than leading scientists 🧑‍🔬

@Speckledhem

What I don’t understand about anti vaxxers is that they think they know more than leading scientists 🧑‍🔬

Wait for all the replies regarding the many eminent, world-renowned professors and doctors who disagree with coronavirus vaccination.

Except they won't actually name anyone, and when pressed it will just be
nonsense peddlers like Mike Yeadon/Sam White/Claire Craig/HART et al.

@theemperorhasnoclothes I can’t find that at all. I can find this though.. www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/howmanychildrendiedfromlongcovid19intheuk

That data is for 2020 though @Trixiefirecracker when we were in Lockdown and vulnerable children were shielding for much of that time too.
Now they are expected to go to school and potentially sit next to child whose sibling or parent has COVID. Figures are sadly going to rise.

@Trixiefirecracker the data is there. I have screenshot 2021 and 2020 figures for comparison on week 43.

I've copied and pasted this. Someone called Chessie posted it on another thread. This is what we are buying into. We are allowing this to happen:

*I find it incredibly depressing to see history repeating itself like this. It feels like no moral progress has been made since witches were burnt at the stake.

You divide society into the "clean" and the "unclean". You blame the "unclean" for whatever has gone wrong and whip up fear over the danger they pose. You restrict their freedom or outright persecute them. And sometimes you say - well if they just convert from their belief system they wouldn't be subject to this treatment so it's their choice.

The rationale seems stronger to people this time because it's "science" based and not religion based but I think it's exactly the same mentality behind it. People get scared and acquiesce in their government scapegoating a particular group and because they are not personally affected by the measures that group is subjected to and they do not agree with their beliefs they can shrug and go on with their lives.*

The people whose freedom is most restricted don't have a choice though.

They are those who are clinically exceptionally vulnerable - they can be any age, and we are all just one lump away from being in that group.

I mention this, not as pity tops trumps, but because the divisions are much more insidious that those that arise from people's choices around vaccination. And the group that is most cast out are not the unvaccinated, but those who have been told repeatedly they should just be excluded from society (though the rhetoric is 'shielded')

Don't forget them

Yes, I find it odd/off how the "My body, my choice"-ers seem to be blithely saying "and you can just stay home if you're so afraid" to anyone who is vaccinated and older, vulnerable, more cautious/unwilling to potentially impose a lifelong burden of ongoing lung and heart and brain problems, etc etc, from unnecessary exposure to this virus, or who just cares about others.

"We've all got to die sometime," they say, but meanwhile, their "bodily autonomy" is sacrosanct.

@milkyaqua

Yes, I find it odd/off how the "My body, my choice"-ers seem to be blithely saying "and you can just stay home if you're so afraid" to anyone who is vaccinated and older, vulnerable, more cautious/unwilling to potentially impose a lifelong burden of ongoing lung and heart and brain problems, etc etc, from unnecessary exposure to this virus, or who just cares about others.

"We've all got to die sometime," they say, but meanwhile, their "bodily autonomy" is sacrosanct.

Totally agree with this. They don't appear to appreciate the irony.

I questioned someone who runs a beauty salon about disabled access to the salon. They didn't have any - and there were many steps down to the shop. "That's fine though," she said. "Disabled people don't get beauty treatments."

I genuinely think there is a disconnect in some people's thinking around this.

@milkyaqua

Yes, I find it odd/off how the "My body, my choice"-ers seem to be blithely saying "and you can just stay home if you're so afraid" to anyone who is vaccinated and older, vulnerable, more cautious/unwilling to potentially impose a lifelong burden of ongoing lung and heart and brain problems, etc etc, from unnecessary exposure to this virus, or who just cares about others.

"We've all got to die sometime," they say, but meanwhile, their "bodily autonomy" is sacrosanct.

What’s the alternative? Government measures were not proven to halt spread and indeed have largely failed. Basically you get the vaxx and hope it works for you, there’s no other way.

@ollyollyoxenfree Dr Peter Doshi for example seems to have some doubts

www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censorship/we-are-not-in-a-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated-says-british-medical-journal-editor-peter-doshi/

What’s the alternative?

A bit of self-awareness and a spot of basic humanity wouldn't go astray.