Are you really prepared to take every single vaccine

[Talsaml]

It worries me that we may have to keep having vaccines going forward. I’m due my booster which I will take but I’m hearing that AZ are in the process of tweaking the current vaccine to combat the new strain. So we are then required to take another booster. Many variants can crop up, suppose another one does very soon. I’m concerned about the number of vaccines we could be taking. Is anyone else? And no I’m not an anti vaxer.

The problem is that we might well not have any choice.
In France, from mid January, it’s compulsory to have had the booster.
In germany, vaccination is becoming compulsory.
There is a movement to extend that the whole of the Eu.

Unless you are planning to stay in the U.K. for ever, then you won’t have the choice anyway. Just like the U.K. have had no other choice but to agree to vaccinate the 12-16yo.

Decisions are taken for us already.

Yes
I have seen too much suffering because people were hesitant, it’s so sad when we have people who have not had the vaccine and suffer or die.

@LostForIdeas
That is terrifying. Why aren’t more people horrified by this?! How are we rolling over and giving up our freedoms so readily?

And to answer the original question, no I would not. I had one COVID vaccine and the awful reaction, pain and period problems I’ve had no way. I wish I’d never had it. I feel cheated.

@Mistyplanet
What would you do if you or one of your loved ones became seriously ill and needed hospitalisation? Not covid related. How would you feel then?
When your child’s life is on the line, a lot changes.

its the vaccinated people I know who've had covid
Considering that more than 80% of the adult population have had the vaccine, it would be odd if this wasn't the case - it would mean that you basically only knew unvaccinated people.

I agree with you about not fearing death. I've had an interesting life, done quite a lot of things. I'm OK with dying. I'm less OK with living but passing it on to someone else who dies. Met up with a couple of friends recently and have sat happily chatting with them, only to have them mention at some point that they're not vaccinated. So I've been unknowingly breathing all over them and could be the one who puts them in intensive care. Great.

[quote AllisoninWunderland]@LostForIdeas
That is terrifying. Why aren’t more people horrified by this?! How are we rolling over and giving up our freedoms so readily?

And to answer the original question, no I would not. I had one COVID vaccine and the awful reaction, pain and period problems I’ve had no way. I wish I’d never had it. I feel cheated.[/quote]
I'm in Germany and lots of people are horrified by it. Where I live, they have just done a study that says a full 22% of the local population now believe in conspiracy theories.

@LostForIdeas

The problem is that we might well not have any choice. In France, from mid January, it’s compulsory to have had the booster. In germany, vaccination is becoming compulsory. There is a movement to extend that the whole of the Eu.

Unless you are planning to stay in the U.K. for ever, then you won’t have the choice anyway. Just like the U.K. have had no other choice but to agree to vaccinate the 12-16yo.

Decisions are taken for us already.

A lot of us do have a choice - I won't visit places where vaccination is compulsory. I obviously appreciate it's different for people who have family in those countries or have to go travel for work though.

My kids are unvaxxed and very rarely get ill.

That's presumably because you live in a country where everyone else's children are vaccinated, which protects your children from exposure to lots of nasty diseases. If lots of other people did what you did and refused to vaccinate their chidlren, then your children's health would be very much at risk from serious illnesses.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay props for trying but I think you’re probably pissing in the wind with someone with that pov tbh. It’s very hard to convince someone they’re in a privileged position to make the choices they make if they don’t come to that conclusion themselves.

Yes really

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

My kids are unvaxxed and very rarely get ill.

That's presumably because you live in a country where everyone else's children are vaccinated, which protects your children from exposure to lots of nasty diseases. If lots of other people did what you did and refused to vaccinate their chidlren, then your children's health would be very much at risk from serious illnesses.

Yes, vaccines are very much a victim of their own sucess in that regard - if diseases are controlled with vaccination programmes, people with no immunity are protected via herd immmunity. That's the point.

I'd just make sure your kids are aware of what they're not vaccinated against for when they visit countries where transmissible diseases aren't so well controlled. And that any DDs are aware of the benefits of HPV vaccination - would be pretty crap if they didn't get the option to have additional protection from cervical cancer.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

My kids are unvaxxed and very rarely get ill.

That's presumably because you live in a country where everyone else's children are vaccinated, which protects your children from exposure to lots of nasty diseases. If lots of other people did what you did and refused to vaccinate their chidlren, then your children's health would be very much at risk from serious illnesses.

Yeah, and look at what happens when there is a measles outbreak. Suddenly all the pathetic little weasels are piling into emergency clinics to get their kids jabbed. Lots of big talk about "natural immunity" right up to the moment that there is a threat panic.

@Cornettoninja

Thank you for your considered reply of Thu 02-Dec-21 12:40:22 on my question to you on leaky vaccines.

I don't know either and I've just started to look at the information on this and am trying to get my head around it. I think it is a concern and only time will tell.

I hope that careful, non-biased, transparent analysis will be done of the emerging data on the role that vaccines are playing in the complex puzzle of this pandemic. I also hope that the data will be collected in the first place and that the politicization of the issue and the unhelpful and IMO false divisons being whipped up between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations are not allowed to muddy the waters or influence policy making more than solid carfeul science does.

There is lots of considered and brilliant science around - the problem is that most people don’t know how to read scientific papers.
The fact that people think their kids are doing fine because they’re unvaccinated and “rarely ill” beggars belief.
The truth is your children are only protected from serious illness because the vast majority of people are sensible and vaccinate their children.
As for Covid, it’s behaving differently. If you’re unvaccinated it will find you.. let’s hope you’re one of the lucky ones?

And the reason it’s behaving differently is because it’s a coronavirus (not like meningitis). Immunity wanes with coronaviruses and so reaching herd immunity to protect the unvaccinated is difficult. Individuals who have had vaccines are very likely to be protected from serious illness and death on an individual level, but we can collectively only protect the unvaccinated so much. That’s the epidemiology

I don't want anymore.

@ollyollyoxenfree I'm really interested in what you said here on Thu 02-Dec-21 12:29:29.

It was also on the subject of leaky vaccines. Like I said I've only just started reading about this so I was grateful to you for mentioning Geert Vanden Bossche as I hadn't actually bothered to go and read his letter to WHO previously as I had allowed myself to be influenced by press headlines and internet soundbites into dismissing it.

But this is where I am with what I understand of his complex theory today in reply to your post.

Yes this is widely accepted - have posted before on why Geert Vanden Bossche et al's speculation on this has been dismissed

This seems like a huge claim to make to me. Surely it is too early to be so sure. And perhaps it is also foolish to dismiss what he says when we are in situation which is constantly changing and evolving. Maybe the Omnicron variant (or the one after it) will shed some light on the emerging picture.

A virus can only mutate when it is replicating, as this when it's genetic material is copied, and mistakes can be made.

Yes to this.

Replication only happens when someone is infected. The quicker and more efficiently the virus is cleared, the less chance there is for it to acquire mutations. A greater level of immunity will enable this to happen quicker - which is gained by vaccination.

This is where I have a big question mark. What I understand so far about what Geert Vanden Bossche is this;

Viruses mutate, that is part of their natural replication process. What covid vaccination has the potential to influence is how those mutants are then "selected" (by evading the vaccine induced variant specific immunity) and transmitted by their human hosts in proportion to previous variants of the virus. So leaky covid vaccines which protect better against "old" variants than they do against a new emerging mutant are giving host space to the new mutant (especially if that mutant is highly infectious and transmissible) and allowing it to become dominant. Thus the highly infectious new emerging mutant becomes the new dominant variant.

What I understand Geert Vanden Bossche to be saying is that this is a logical possibility (based on what we know about immunology, virology and vaccinology) which needs to be examined. He also has concerns about the emergence and "selection" of more virulent mutants.

I guess we are in the process of finding out if he is onto something. I imagine that the people who decide on vaccination strategy and policy will be watching carefully to see what happens in highly vaccinated populations such as Israel.

@Cornettoninja

But on the first NHS point - I know others have a differing opinion but I have never been able to get adequate care on the NHS until something reaches crisis point - and still then I haven't 9/10 and have either had to go private or muddle along untreated. So to me a collapsed NHS is what it has always been. Its just how I feel from my experience

It’s impossible (imho) to not recognise that the NHS has a great many failings but it’s what we have. Unless/until it’s reformed and/or replaced it’s all we’ve got. Private doesn’t cover emergency care nor every kind of care needed. There’s no private option to replace a&e, the ambulance service, emergency surgery, ICU and that’s what’s suffering with covid pressures.

Longer term/non-life threatening but life affecting conditions I’d agree that if people can they should investigate private options but even private is struggling at the moment because we simply don’t have the healthcare infrastructure regardless of how it’s funded.

Also the evidence is that countries with strong private healthcare systems are experiencing the same issues. It seems that there isn’t a healthcare set-up globally that can cope with the numbers of people that need it/can access it due to covid. I suspect healthcare provisions globally will have to be marginally raised to accommodate covid longer term.

I feel that you’re not fully grasping that it isn’t just about ‘the NHS’ as it’s been branded. That’s just short hand. It’s about access to modern medicine. You might think you don’t need it but no one thinks they do until they’re in a car crash, have a heart attack or have a stroke. The NHS wasn’t great in 2019, but this is another level.

Yes.

I’m in a US state that has recently reached similar Covid levels to the UK. We had plenty of hospital capacity until Covid.

A friend’s father was recently taken to hospital after a fall, and the ambulance had to wait several hours at the ER before being able to drop him off.

My friend then wasn’t allowed to visit him until the day he died.

None of this would have been normal here prior to Covid.

We’ve also now started delaying things like hip replacements and cataract surgeries because of decreased capacity due to Covid.

And winter has only just started - it’s going to get much worse.

I hope that careful, non-biased, transparent analysis will be done of the emerging data on the role that vaccines are playing in the complex puzzle of this pandemic. I also hope that the data will be collected in the first place and that the politicization of the issue and the unhelpful and IMO false divisons being whipped up between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations are not allowed to muddy the waters or influence policy making more than solid carfeul science does

Me too @Beachcomber. I would, however, put more responsibility on us, as in the general public. Science isn’t a quick process and expectations are wildly out of kilter with what’s actually possible and we all know by now that the media steers us. We’re not helpless victims at the mercy of murdoch and propaganda, we’re, on the whole, adults capable of rational thought with unimaginable amounts of information accessible at our fingertips. It’s our society and culture that has wholeheartedly bought into the ‘battle’ narrative and picking of sides like there can be a winner.

Yes @Cornettoninja. I agree with you that we all have a responsibility.

I really dislike the current divisions and I'm really saddened by how quickly we seem to have gone from "we're all in this together" to something rather different. I think divisions and labelling around vaccination are really helpful (and sometimes really horrible) and as you say we all have a responsibility to try to properly understand and think about the situation we find ourselves in.

I think the sense of fear that we have is making that difficult but we have to try (and we probably need to work on the fear too).

Unfortunately, freedom of choice in a pandemic means your choice can impact many others with dreadful consequences.

Well, freedom of choice shouldn't mean dreadful consequences, not if people understand the choices and the effects their choices can have on themselves and on others, and are willing to follow expert advice. We have been very lucky in the UK that early on so many of us chose to be vaccinated. We weren't compelled but we were advised and very many of us chose to be vaccinated and many of us are still following the advice for boosters and for our children.

Some other countries haven't been so lucky, they were slower to get started or many more people resisted getting vaccinated, so they are in a dangerous situation and got drawn in to compulsory vaccination. I really wish that Germany had not chosen to make vaccination compulsory because it has effects here too, it polarises and politicises the decision and makes some people here even more resistant. (Though Germany may not have had much choice short of allowing their health system to fall apart)

Ironically if many more people in the UK become unwilling to get vaccinated and boosted then that may force us towards compulsory vacination too just to keep the NHS from collapse. I really hope it doesn't.

@Beachcomber

Yes *@Cornettoninja*. I agree with you that we all have a responsibility.

I really dislike the current divisions and I'm really saddened by how quickly we seem to have gone from "we're all in this together" to something rather different. I think divisions and labelling around vaccination are really helpful (and sometimes really horrible) and as you say we all have a responsibility to try to properly understand and think about the situation we find ourselves in.

I think the sense of fear that we have is making that difficult but we have to try (and we probably need to work on the fear too).

This is very interesting how you say this Beachcomber.

For me working on the fear and understanding the situation is very important. I do this by taking a step back and assessing who/what is giving us the latest orders or instructions. Who is saying that we should be afraid. How things are worded.

I look at our government and see how untrustworthy they are.

I look at our media and see how agenda lead they they seem to be. Why are certain topics focused on so heavily whilst other significant events etc are left out altogether? Why are questions not being asked when they should be?

There was a piece on Newsnight yesterday that focused on medication the UK government has bought in 100,000s packages. Each dose costs something horrendous like £500. This is the link for it on the bbc - it's called Molnupiravir. So much money has been spent on it and the piece on Newsnight said that the medication would make no difference because it can't be given quickly enough to have effect - intraveneous administration is too difficult for GPs and it doesn't work on the vaccinated - only on the vaccinated. And yet millions will have been spent on it: "The UK government has not disclosed how much its initial contract for 480,000 courses of molnupiravir is worth. But US authorities recently made an advance purchase of 1.7 million courses at a cost of roughly $1.2 billion, or $700 (£513) for each patient."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899?at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=E52CC5B2-53B1-11EC-821A-FF10933C408C&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom3=%40BBCNewsnight&at_campaign=64&at_custom2=twitter