AIBU : unvaxxed friend moaning about covid

[UnicyclingBabies]

My friend has covid. Her husband and her kids have covid. They are not seriously ill thank goodness, but they're feeling pretty rough and finding it hard and inconvenient to be stuck inside feeling unwell and have all the hassle of Test and Trace etc

Every day she posts on social media moaning about it. I get that it's not fun for her, but I know loads of people who've had covid (including some who were hospitalised) and none of them seemed to need to complain so publicly. The kicker is, she and all her family are unvaccinated. AIBU to feel irritated?

I wouldn’t feel especially sympathetic. I would help if they needed any shopping but otherwise just ignore.

[quote Remmy123]@ButtonSister I know more vaccinated people with covid then I did pre-vaccine.[/quote]
😂😂😂 Pre-vaccine there were no vaccinated people with covid. Amazing revelation!

@User0658

Even if she had the vaccine she could of still got ill and caught covid so I don't know what you're so upset about?

What is your point? Everyone knows that you can still get covid after vaccination but all the evidence shows that at a population level it's likely to be less severe so of course you'd be more sympathetic to someone who's done everything they could to minimise the effects surely. It would be odd to be equally sympathetic imo

YABU.

You just want to bash people who did not get vaccine and go ill. Frankly it is getting very annoying. You cab get ill and badly even if vaccinated. Do you like society to be divided and segregated?.
Let others be and respect their basic human rights.

Surely she would be complaining about T&T if she was vaccinated, being vaccinated doesn't stop them pestering you.

I can't understand why people follow people on SM if they don't really like them

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/think-well/201812/why-many-people-stubbornly-refuse-change-their-minds

It's cognitive dissonance. People reject things that don't fit in with their world view and disproportionately accept things that do (confirmation bias).

It's obvious factually that you're less likely to die if you've been vaccinated but if that doesn't fit in with some people's world view so they'll find an argument that fits in with the way they want to continue to think (eg. well, some people die from the vaccine or I know someone who's ill and has been vaccinated). The fact that the overall statistics don't support them is glossed over.

IHateFlies

It’s worrying that so many people think they’re not going to get covid because they’re vaccinated. It’s quite known now that it gives protection from serious illness, but not protection from getting covid“

Protection from serious illness is the point!

@MrsSkylerWhite

IHateFlies

It’s worrying that so many people think they’re not going to get covid because they’re vaccinated. It’s quite known now that it gives protection from serious illness, but not protection from getting covid“

Protection from serious illness is the point!

Well yes, but if people are happy to take that risk it's up to them. I don't see the point in getting annoyed at someone else's decision to not get vaccinated.

Just unfriend her

So if it's protection against serious illness and she's mildly ill why is she not allowed to be inconvenienced by this? When she could be mildly ill with or without the vaccine?

She would have been less likely to catch it at all had she had the vaccine... And less likely to pass it to the rest of her family. She's still allowed to be mildly inconvenienced by it, of course... But to post daily inflicting the details of the inconvenience on her friends and inviting sympathy, is a little tone deaf I feel.

Just unfollow her?
You don’t sound like you’re very good friends so just unfollow her on social media. I have a friend who has COPD who still smokes but I’m compassionate towards her as I recognise that life isn’t black and white and that people make lifestyle decisions based on a number of very complex reasons.

So now she has covid she is no more likely to spread it then you are . She could see it as taking one for the team allowing vaccinations to go to people who are much more likely to be ill

In Switzerland if you have covid you get a recovery certificate for a year so seems they recognise that these people also carry natural immunity

And less likely to pass it to the rest of her family.

“ fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext

"So now she has covid she is no more likely to spread it then you are"
Er.... I haven't got covid, so I think she's 100% more likely to have spread it before she became symptomatic and started to isolate. She passed it to the rest of her family, for a start.

Bumbleymummy that doesn't fit with the many articles and studies I've seen saying the converse.
For instance: www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-likely-are-you-to-spread-covid-19-if-youre-vaccinated/

Grapewrath I think you're right and I will unfollow her. I also have sympathy for your friend with COPD who hasn't been able to stop smoking. Life is full of complicated choices, as you point out. But if your friend was posting daily about how hard her life was, I might find my sympathy became a bit strained. I may be a lot less of a nice person than you are!

Yep. Conflicted findings. There are other studies that found no significant difference between the groups too. Just shows that we’re still figuring it out so we probably can’t say for sure that she ‘would have been less likely to pass it to her family’ if she’d been vaccinated.

[quote bumbleymummy]And less likely to pass it to the rest of her family.

“ fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext[/quote]
Lots of articles that show the opposite that you've been directed to.

As on the "natural immunity" thread, another poster pointed out it is unsuprising that you don't see a difference in studies relying on a positive case. Will try and and find it.

This thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4408995-Natural-immunity-BBC-article?pg=3

And was the post about using postive case that made sense to me

"@bumbleymummy as has been said before, there are studies with better design which do show reduced viral load and a reduced duration of being infectious in those vaccinated compared to unvaccinated. As I said on another thread, so that study, and others, are based on a positive test result. You're going to be biasing your analyses towards to the null by doing this, as you're artifically changing who is selected into your sample.There will be a large number of people walking around unware they have coronavirus. These people will on average have a lower viral load. Numbers are not equal between vaccinated and unvaccinated - vaccianted cohorts tend to have higher rates of asymtomatic or low level symptoms that are missed."

"When you randomly sample the general population, like in REACT-2, you are getting a more reliable estimate of what is actually happening, minimising this bias, and these studies have demonstrated lower viral load and reduced duration of being infectious."

agree with pps @UnicyclingBabies, i'd just unfollow someone who's posts were annoying me

i think most will just be thinking this could probably have been avoided/lessened if they'd been vaccinated

@saltedcaramel1 that poster is perfectly entitled to have their own opinion about the quality of the study design. It has been peer reviewed and published.

@Nerdygirl

So now she has covid she is no more likely to spread it then you are . She could see it as taking one for the team allowing vaccinations to go to people who are much more likely to be ill

In Switzerland if you have covid you get a recovery certificate for a year so seems they recognise that these people also carry natural immunity

I fully believe it's everyone's individual choice to be vaccinated, but suggestion she's actually benefitting people and "taking one for the team" by not be vaccinated is an interesting take!

We don't have a bottleneck on vaccine availibilty here. The vaccinated/elderly/CEV have good vaccination uptake. Her refusing isn't allowing someone else to be vaccinated. By saying no, as is her right, she's increasing overall risk, not decreasing it.

suggesting!*

I fully admit I can't follow the points about biases in studies. I accept there are no definitive answers as yet though as you point out bumbley. Purely anecdotally, last year pre vaccines, if someone got covid among my friends and acquaintances, their entire family ended up getting it. This year, amongst vaccinated friends, there are lots of cases of only one or two people per family getting it, despite mixing as normal within a household. It surprised me at first as it went against what we learned about delta being very infectious, but it does make sense if the vaccines reduce transmission.

"We don't have a bottleneck on vaccine availibilty here. The vaccinated/elderly/CEV have good vaccination uptake. Her refusing isn't allowing someone else to be vaccinated. By saying no, as is her right, she's increasing overall risk, not decreasing it."

I agree totally with this! It is an individual choice but it is also choice that affects the rest of us. It's definitely not a choice that benefits others in any way.