Stop comparing Covid with Smallpox

[Lilifer]

Smallpox had a fatality rate of 30% of the population FFS! The estimated worldwide covid Infection fatality rate is put at 0.15% in
this article pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33768536/ published by John Iaonnidis from Stanford university.

Therefore trying to use Smallpox vaccination mandate as an argument for Covid vaccination mandate just makes you look ignorant of historical fact. Find a better argument for mandating covid vaccine rather than comparing it to a disease that was wiping out nearly a third of the population 😐

Yanbu. I also hate the meme about people not avoiding it like the plague - the Black Death killed 30-60% of Europe’s population.

@Lilifer you are correct op I genuinely cannot understand the support for mandatory vaccination with a 0.15 death rate it's not comparable to the smallpox

@Lilifer why do you think it wasn't meant to help ?

It was a genuine answer to a post. Your snarky response is quite rude. But I expect you meant it to be ?

The main reason that people mention small pox is that at one time it was a mandatory vaccine in the UK. Just part of fact checking some of the alternative facts spouted on here.

Smallpox is the only virus eradicated and it existed for a few thousand years.

Covid is a really good virus for spread but not good for killing people.

@ablutiions

The point is that the smallpox vaccination is an exemplar for vaccinated programmes, and that people welcomed it and trusted the scientists and medics.

Contrast that with the covid vaccination response of low take up, not trusting the scientists and medics and people dying and getting long covid un-necessarily.

The diseases themselves are entirely different of course and can't be compared. It's all about the vaccination programmes.

Does that help ?

History would beg to differ with the smallpox vaccine programs being welcomed with open arms, enthusiasm, and trust. It was not.

Another huge difference is the fact that the smallpox and polio vaccines were over 95% effective at providing lifetime immunity.

There is also a difference in that small pox does not have a 'reservoir' in the animal population, whereas Covid-19 does.
This is why it can never be eradicated completely, although I understand over time it will get weaker.
It also took around 200 years to eradicate small pox.

Another huge difference is the fact that the smallpox and polio vaccines were over 95% effective at providing lifetime immunity.
A polio infection also provides 95% protection. Hence more than one vaccine being given in the fortunate first word countries.
Covid is not the same.

Has anyone thought of fact checking their facts.

A closer comparison would be Polio.

Similar death rates

Smallpox antivaxxers reckoned you'd grow cow ears.

@Againstmachine

Smallpox is the only virus eradicated and it existed for a few thousand years.

Covid is a really good virus for spread but not good for killing people.

But it not just about deaths is it.

@ablutiions

The point is that the smallpox vaccination is an exemplar for vaccinated programmes, and that people welcomed it and trusted the scientists and medics.

Contrast that with the covid vaccination response of low take up, not trusting the scientists and medics and people dying and getting long covid un-necessarily.

The diseases themselves are entirely different of course and can't be compared. It's all about the vaccination programmes.

Does that help ?

This is what confuses me.

I'm in Scotland and the take up rate of the vaccine is over 90% of the people eligible to have it. Englands rate isn't far behind. How can that be described as a low take up?

If the government had said this time last year that 90% of the eligible population would be vaccinated in under a year we would have been thrilled at the very high take up rate. Now 90% is considered low?

Covid is a new disease. None of us were immune to it, immunity does not appear to be very long, 8 months or so. Hopefully after a few jabs and a few infections Covid will become like other coronaviruses and just be slightly annoying.

Polio vaccines were generally only given to DC because their parents and grandparents already had naturally acquired immunity.

I have natural immunity to measles, mump and rubella younger people have vaccine induced immunity.

I remember a big push to get adults to take the polio vaccine. The NHS or public health or whoever was doing it used to have stalls at big events and offer it, I remember being at such an event with aunt and uncle and they had it. I had the injection but when they had it it was on a sugar lump. I had it in the 50s and they had it early 60s I think but it could have been very late 50s.

This is a very informative article @ancientgran, does it ring true for the region you lived in?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545991

@tigger the rate may be high (ish) - I haven't checked your 90% though - but ICUs across the country are still stuffed with previously healthy people fighting for their lives - a huge majority being unvaccinated. This is still causing a huge backlog in routine procedures.

Add to this the significant burden of long covid, and this is where the continuing problem lies.

Oh, and that boosters are needed to keep up immunity or we will slide back to pre-vaccination infection levels.

Covid is a bastard.

If the government had said this time last year that 90% of the eligible population would be vaccinated in under a year we would have been thrilled at the very high take up rate. Now 90% is considered low?

I think people started to panic when they realized that the vaccine wouldn't solve the problem.

They actually are not being rational in trying to force more people to get the vaccine. They are trying to find someone or something to blame for it not working out as they thought, and also trying to hold onto some shred of hope that soon covid will be gone. They can't face that it will be ongoing, because they can't accept the possibility of just living normally with it, and they realize that permanent measures like masks, social distancing, etc, isn't really going to work either.

@Gingernaut

A closer comparison would be Polio.

Similar death rates

This. Very very similar in fact. And most people get the polio vaccine, don't they?

As far as trust in the vaccine, while there was more distrust of the smallpox vaccine than many people now realize, people's distrust of medicine is probably a bit more focused now. The 20th and even 21st centuries produced some doozies in terms of medical/scientific errors or corruption, and people are widely aware of them.

Last time I had occasion to watch tv in the US, every commercial break there seemed to be an advertisement about suits brought against the company that produced vaginal mesh. That stuff is at the front on many people's awareness all the time.

Surely the difference with smallpox also lies in the inability of covid vaccines to create herd immunity.

This. Very very similar in fact. And most people get the polio vaccine, don't they?

There are some differences, particularly the age of people who die. People do not, and should not, consider an elderly frail person who dies of a respiratory infection the same as a child who dies of polio.

Polio also had quite significant effects in many who didn't die, and whatever people say about long covid that doesn't seem to be at the same level.

@Mynameismargot

Therefore trying to use Smallpox vaccination mandate as an argument for Covid vaccination mandate just makes you look ignorant of historical fact.

Can I add the same but for people comparing vaccination mandates to the holocaust?

This! It's so offensive and also so untrue.

My DF was babbling on about our rights being taken away and I said is anyone holding you down and sticking a needle in you? No? Then you're rights are still intact.

Just because you can't do certain things, it's totally your choice at this point.

OP your missing the point of that being raised. And is smallpox mandatory here? I didn't think we had any mandatory but could be wrong obv... (Just googled. It hasn't been mandatory since 1971!!!).

While there may well be posts arguing for it to be mandatory because smallpox mandatory.

All the posts I've seen raise it because well known.

The point is that when people see it as their choice based on their personal assessment of risk of contracting/ severity if do.

Then naturally uptake will fall.

And that's not good because vaccines are preventative (which is obviously better than treatment in terms of patient, NHS resource) and need a very high uptake if to work well or even at all.

Example measles vaccine. Report v famously led to reduction in uptake here.
(And elsewhere in some areas even before net, people were traveling to areas and pushing scare stories about specific vaccines or all vaccines as well).

Result- measles outbreaks here and around the world. Consequences include loss of hearing, death, can't remember others.

And reason mention this is that measles has been uncommon here for years. The memory of the impact it can have is for many not there. Because of vaccine.

Then. Loads think well doesn't sound too bad. Everyone used to get it! Hmm. Not going to.

And back it comes.

In areas where there were outbreaks they had a stack of people turning up for vaccination who hadn't taken when offered for whatever reason.

That's why it's compared to other vaccines. Because with vaccines individual pick and choose based on how feel about illness will alter vaccination uptake across the board. And that has consequences.

I know loads don't think that way. I'm only saying why smallpox Vax comes up.

And given the OP is WRONG anyway. Whether they have any interest in accepting and rephrasing let's see.

I also think it's extremely unlikely covid Vax will be compulsory here.

So that's another point.

@Mynameismargot

Therefore trying to use Smallpox vaccination mandate as an argument for Covid vaccination mandate just makes you look ignorant of historical fact.

Can I add the same but for people comparing vaccination mandates to the holocaust?

You can indeed. And the Venn diagram often meets at both those elements I find. (Not that I've actually heard anyone other than the Google experts use the comparison for Covid/Smallpox)