Why is it acceptable to be angry with people who don’t want the vaccine?

[Wuishj]

I’ve had both. I didn’t want them initially but after looking into it more, I decided to have them and think it’s the right thing.

But I would never be angry, rude, dismissive of someone who didn’t want the vaccine. I’m finding these discussions very draining - they happen at work, among friends, on the news. Whatever happened to allowing people to decide for themselves as to whether they want to book an appointment and have a needle injected into them?

Honestly, I don’t think it’s the right thing not to have the vaccine but i am astonished at how narrow minded people are that they cannot respect the decision of other people. I think if everyone backed off from blaming other people then they might find that more people DID end up having the vaccine.

Rant over!

@milkyaqua

Meanwhile, what we can do in the here and now - what is actually in our power - is to get vaccinated, get boosters, wear masks, distance, all the stuff people want to argue against as impinging on their rights (which seem to include the right to pretend this isn't happening, or serious).

yup, and I respect people's right to not get vaccinated, however I do not respect their right to ignore all other suppression measures as an alternative, or deny coronavirus is a problem

@milkyaqua

Meanwhile, what we can do in the here and now - what is actually in our power - is to get vaccinated, get boosters, wear masks, distance, all the stuff people want to argue against as impinging on their rights (which seem to include the right to pretend this isn't happening, or serious).

We can wear masks / socially distance / take vaccines / get sick / resist the erosion of rights / etc whilst demanding an explanation for why we have to do all that.

It's within our power to do all of those things at the same time.

This is happening and this is extremely serious. And it is far from over. Maybe if our medical advisors got to see the secret information on how this thing came about it would help them to know what we are dealing with and how to combat it.

Maybe if our medical advisors got to see the secret information on how this thing came about it would help them to know what we are dealing with and how to combat it.

It is a coronavirus @Beachcomber - it's been genomically sequenced 10,000s of times - there isn't "secret information" that would somehow allow us to develop vaccines with 100% efficacy or prevent people from getting ill or dying.

I think making it out to be this scary unprecented being isn't particularly helpful

I think burying or ignoring or not being interested in this massive life changing global pandemic being in all likelihood the result of human error and the product of dangerous manipulation and engineering of viruses is scary and unhelpful.

And really really weird.

Are people so worn down by this thing that they don't have the energy to demand a truthful explanation of why our lives have been put in danger and our world turned upside down?

@Beachcomber

I think burying or ignoring or not being interested in this massive life changing global pandemic being in all likelihood the result of human error and the product of dangerous manipulation and engineering of viruses is scary and unhelpful.

And really really weird.

Are people so worn down by this thing that they don't have the energy to demand a truthful explanation of why our lives have been put in danger and our world turned upside down?

See my multiple replies to your post..

It is possible to both be frustrated with those who are are denying any kind of coronavirus restrictions & spreading misinformation AND want to hold those responsible for mistakes or potential causes

I know that I personally would have far more time to campaign for transparency & answers (on many aspects including the government response to CV) if I wasn't living in an out of control pandemic.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue.

@Beachcomber

I think burying or ignoring or not being interested in this massive life changing global pandemic being in all likelihood the result of human error and the product of dangerous manipulation and engineering of viruses is scary and unhelpful.

And really really weird.

Are people so worn down by this thing that they don't have the energy to demand a truthful explanation of why our lives have been put in danger and our world turned upside down?

Very well said! Admire your clear thinking and courage.

@Beachcomber @LifeIsWhat

The immediate threat to the UK is not China's role in the pandemic, but controlling the huge incoming omicron wave we have that is exponentially growing.

This is why measures such as encouragement of vaccination, masks, ventilation, asymptomatic testing, distancing are so important right.

I think distracting yourself with China gain of function research/Pfizer profits/US benefitting from the pandemic etc, is more like "burying your head" in the sand.

Of course holding people accountable is important, as is identifying the origins of SARS-COV-2, but so are the other measures I have described. No one will give a shite if the origin story is cracked but the UK is dealing with catatrosphic levels of coronavirus & people are dying of non-COVID health emergencies.

The mind boggles!

I know that I personally would have far more time to campaign for transparency & answers (on many aspects including the government response to CV) if I wasn't living in an out of control pandemic.

@riveted1

I think most people feel like that.

But there are brave and energetic people who are asking questions and demanding answers. We just need to support them in our own individual small ways

I think burying or ignoring or not being interested in this massive life changing global pandemic being in all likelihood the result of human error and the product of dangerous manipulation and engineering of viruses is scary and unhelpful.

It has been proven, disproven, reproven, disproven, over and over, a number of times since the start of the pandemic that this virus was manmade/escaped a lab, etc.

It seems an odd deflectionary thing to be focusing in on now, when there are far bigger fish to fry. That we (the world) can actually do something about to mitigate the worst effects of, or not.

And I suppose the reason I find your posts a tad suspect @Beachcomber is that you spend a lot of time posting about how vaccination of the gen pop isn't necessary, they're not safe, you don't beleive they were developed correctly etc etc

That it just feels like this latest series of posts are another angle of that...

I discuss the issues you raise quite a lot with people at work, but the difference is they're not people who continually minimise coronavirus or are anti vaccination

[quote riveted1]**@Beachcomber* @LifeIsWhat*

The immediate threat to the UK is not China's role in the pandemic, but controlling the huge incoming omicron wave we have that is exponentially growing.

This is why measures such as encouragement of vaccination, masks, ventilation, asymptomatic testing, distancing are so important right.

I think distracting yourself with China gain of function research/Pfizer profits/US benefitting from the pandemic etc, is more like "burying your head" in the sand.

Of course holding people accountable is important, as is identifying the origins of SARS-COV-2, but so are the other measures I have described. No one will give a shite if the origin story is cracked but the UK is dealing with catatrosphic levels of coronavirus & people are dying of non-COVID health emergencies.

The mind boggles![/quote]
But we cannot be so gripped with fear that we submit to what may be terrible errors, cover ups and practices which put our societies, lives and economies in danger.

Don't worry I've been busy today wearing a mask, getting my DD tested (again) for covid, working overtime to cover for my covid sick colleagues, cancelling my mother's visit for Christmas, using my covid pass to go about my business as well as glancing at a news app and reading an article on the biggest scandal of my lifetime and giving a shit about it.

Did you miss all the other articles about this over the last 22 months??

but we cannot be so gripped with fear

@Beachcomber

Applyig suppression measures, in the current context, is not being "gripped with fear"

It's calmly putting things in place that will minimise death & disability and go some way to reducing the liklihood of damaging measures like lockdowns and schools closures later down the line.

@riveted1

And I suppose the reason I find your posts a tad suspect *@Beachcomber* is that you spend a lot of time posting about how vaccination of the gen pop isn't necessary, they're not safe, you don't beleive they were developed correctly etc etc

That it just feels like this latest series of posts are another angle of that...

I discuss the issues you raise quite a lot with people at work, but the difference is they're not people who continually minimise coronavirus or are anti vaccination

If you pay as much attention to my posts as your above comment suggests you do you will know that I had covid and was very very ill with it. And I also state that I was frightened by it and that it was the sickest I've been in my adult life.

I do not minimise coronovirus at all.

I've been on MN for years and I am a just a parent who sees things a bit differently to you.

Your above comment is rather troll hunterly and verging on personal attack. Both of which are against the MN guidelines.

@Beachcomber I'm in no way accusing you of being a troll or attacking you, I'm just putting your posts into context

Have had similar convos with @bumbleymummy of which I think her posting history is relevant, and people have done the same to me

context is important, but definitely do not want it to seem like a personal attack

I don't care if people have had the vaccine or not. Why would I know?
I I care if they spread misinformation that stops other people getting it. Or if they try to tell other people not to have t.

Yeah whatever @riveted1

Saying that you find my posts 'a tad suspect' is out of order.

What you mean is 'I disagree with you'.

Anyway goodnight. I don't really want to continue this discussion with you as I find your posts depressing and life is crap enough at the moment.

@Beachcomber

I'm with you.

If this was a genuinely accidental lab leak then why on earth wasn't the relevant information shared immediately by those responsible in the interests of preventing this shit show? Why the mis-direction? Why the howls of conspiracy theory and immediate pointing towards it being to do with our environmental failings? Why were politics placed above global public health?

One can say that it was chaos, people did6know, scientists were caught on the back foot, but really? All this GOF research being done with the apparent skill and security of a sixth form lab? It is research into creating bio-weapons after all, that is one of the major points of doing it. Maybe it is technically illegal under the Geneva convention, but one of the things this pandemic has surely shown is that bending and twisting rules and the scope of accountability is a moveable feast.

No-one wants to believe that there could possibly be anyone taking advantage of this situation, and yet there are plenty of corporations which have done very nicely out of all this, and which are tied up with politicians and global leaders.

It is easy to say the man on the street is selfish for not doing the simple things to srem the tide of each new variant, but our leaders are no different and have bigger stakes in the game.

Yes, I am fully aware I sound like a complete tin foil hatter, but we do seem to be in a perfect psychological stew - the fatigue and chaos is making people demand authoritarianism and is creating huge divisions and disparity across the board. Every emotional button is being pressed and every time it seems things may just be settling down, along comes another crisis.

We have not just a pandemic, but climate change, race and gender wars all with significant political impact being played out all at the same time and it's no wonder people are fearful and angry - doing the right thing is a lot more complicated across the board than at any time in history, because we have global communication, instantly, and it can be leveraged by any number of bad faith actors at any time, according to the whims of the stock market etc etc.

I'm in my 50s, and have spent my life trying to do the right thing, have complied with the logical mitigations against the virus, have kept crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, but right now I just feel like a mug because it seems as plain as day that there are things going on we don't know......

Thanks @MistressoftheDarkSide

One of the reasons I'm angry about this is because I was so sick with covid as was my DH. A friend with a kidney problem died of covid (not with covid). Another friend had an uncle die from blood clotting within 24 hours of having a covid vaccine - his death is officially recorded as being caused by the vaccine.

I do not minimise coronoavirus or the consequences of it. Quite the opposite.

nypost.com/2021/11/04/letter-confirms-wuhan-lab-virus-study-was-funded-by-taxpayers/

The first reported cases of COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, China, the site of the WIV. In addition, both US intelligence sources and the State Department reported that several WIV researchers became ill and were hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms months prior to the Chinese government’s announcement of the first cases.

If people hadn't tried to cover up this dodgy research then maybe none of this would have happened. Or at at the very least we would have been forewarned.

Beachcomber Just look at that list of sources you posted. If you want to understand the origins of the pandemic and how we got here do you really think that is where you will find the answers?

It might be tempting for MSM in the west to paint it as a homogenous bogeyman (and the Telegraph in particular has form for this, literally decades of publishing ignorant xenophobia) but China is a country of a billion people, as large if not larger than Europe. Can you not imagine how the political failings we have seen here in the handling of the pandemic might be amplified in a political system whose checks and balances (which do exist in a Confucian system and we’re manifest at Tiananmen and other crucial times in Chinese history) have always been in conflict with brutal legalistic rulers in a country that is too large for effective centralised government? There is a saying that “Heaven is high and the Emperor far away” which particularly applies to the early days of the pandemic.

The origins of the SARS epidemic were not identified for 10 years and then it turned out to have originated far away from where the original cases were identified and break outs occurred. It originated in Guangdong in the south in November 2002 and spread along transport routes turning up in the first identified cases in Vietnam and in big break outs in Beijing and Hong Kong in March 2003. That is a better indicator for how the origins of this pandemic will be traced. Significantly this pandemic was first spotted by the Taiwanese who in mid December were already sending health officials on to planes from Wuhan because they had spotted people arriving with a mysterious respiratory diseases they had been on the look out for since 2003. They implemented a full public health response at the end of December and have given the world an example of how you can do that effectively (apart from a failure to ramp up testing in response to Delta - a lesson they quickly learned). Just imagine if the rest of the world had reacted like Taiwan? Xi meanwhile was firmly focused on Willy waving in a trade war with Trump and the local officials in Wuhan did what local officials have done throughout history (to people’s even greater cost in the great famine, Taiping rebellion etc. ) and tried to conceal their local failings by suppressing information and cleaning up the wet market. Xi did not act until mid January because he did not know what was going on and his eyes were elsewhere.

The scientist working in the lab in Wuhan is actually a part of a global response to the SARS epidemic. She is respected around the world and has far more connection to her global peers than to any sort of mysterious plot to kill the rest of the world on the part of the Chinese government (which really does not fly as an idea when you understand Chinese culture and politics) . She had shared her research with Scientists working in the U.K., Australia and elsewhere. She was working on Coronaviruses and had sampled viruses from bats in Yunnan (1000 miles from Wuhan) who were suspects in a respiratory disease which had killed miners there. However that Coronavirus had a very different RBA to Covid, more primitive and scientists in the rest of the world who have sequenced Covid do not believe that virus or any other being investigated by the Wuhan lab was related to Covid.

I understand that you are upset and bitter about the last two years and are looking for someone to blame but those of us who lived through SARS knew this was coming, we also knew that politicians around the world and cultures in the west would be unlikely to respond as effectively as Asian countries did in 2003 to contain the out break (and again with MERs, another Coronavirus which actually emerged in the Middle East and caused a particular outbreak in South Korea) Look to the politicians for the bogeymen not some far fetched, if you have any understanding of China, conspiracy theory being pushed by far right xenophobic politicians and media who have no real understanding of what they are talking about (either on China or the science) ,

If you want to understand the origins of the pandemic and how we got here do you really think that is where you will find the answers?
@Emilyontmoor

No I think we will find answers in the inquiry and subsequent criminal investigation which a lot of high up people are demanding in the US.

www.foxnews.com/media/new-wuhan-covid-docs-contradict-fauci-ex-state-dept-official

nypost.com/2021/11/04/letter-confirms-wuhan-lab-virus-study-was-funded-by-taxpayers/

The first reported cases of COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, China, the site of the WIV. In addition, both US intelligence sources and the State Department reported that several WIV researchers became ill and were hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms months prior to the Chinese government’s announcement of the first cases.

..................................

Despite intensive efforts over the past two years, no one has found a bat-source population, SARS-CoV-2 circulating in an intermediate species that functioned as a viral conduit between bats and humans, or evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was present anywhere else before it emerged in Wuhan.

Consider, too, the unique furin cleavage site between the S1 and S2 subunits of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Furin is an enzyme expressed by human cells that separates the spike protein subunits at the cleavage site, enabling the virus to bind more efficiently to human cells and release its genetic material into them. It is an important reason that SARS-CoV-2 is so easily transmissible.

The furin cleavage site is found nowhere else in the entire genus of SARS-related betacoronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is the only one that has it. This fact alone suggests that it did not arise naturally in SARS-CoV-2. In addition, while other, more distant coronaviruses do have furin cleavage sites, the protein components (amino acids) in the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site are coded for by a unique set of nucleotides in its RNA, not found in the other viruses, making natural recombination between the viruses unlikely.

It’s particularly concerning that in 2018 the EcoHealth Alliance reportedly submitted a proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to partner with the WIV in constructing SARS-related bat coronaviruses by inserting such cleavage sites into their spike proteins. DARPA rejected the proposal because it failed to address the risks of gain-of-function research. EcoHealth’s president, Daszak, did not dispute details of the reporting.

In other words: There are many indications that SARS-CoV-2 could have been created in a lab, specifically the Wuhan lab, which was conducting gain-of-function-type research with coronaviruses, some of it funded by the NIH.

While the particular experiments revealed in Tabak’s letter may not have created SARS-CoV-2, other research at the WIV, including research that EcoHealth sought to fund with US grants, could have done so.

It’s doubtful that we will ever discover the true origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, since the Chinese will never cooperate with a full and open investigation. It doesn’t help that, until recently, our own NIH stonewalled on questions about its funding of WIV research.

Sen. Rand Paul has called on Dr. Anthony Fauci to resign over denying gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Considering the release of the recent NIH letter and the revelations about EcoHealth Alliance, it remains entirely possible that US taxpayers funded a project at the Wuhan lab that may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I understand that you are upset and bitter about the last two years and are looking for someone to blame but those of us who lived through SARS knew this was coming

I don't know how old you think I am but I was an adult when SARS was happening.

I think that the very least we all deserve is transparency and truth. No matter what that truth is. If we don't know where SARS-CoV-2 originated or we prove that it is an unlucky and natural zoonatic development then that's OK. As long as it is the truth.

You seem to think that I'm angry with China. I'm not - I want to know what the US involvement with all this is.

I'm not looking for "someone to blame" (indeed I find your suggestion rather condescending). I'm interested in facts, science, critical thinking, analysis, and in us all learning from this if it has been a dreadful and preventable mistake.

But even if all that is true, why would it make you not want to get vaccinated against the disease? Even if it did escape from a lab or was engineered and then escaped, even if people have tried to cover it up as is human nature, what has that got to do with vaccination? Unless you think the pharmaceutical companies engineered the leak so that they could develop vaccines. But even in that case, wouldn't it be better to be vaccinated even if it was all planned? It's still a nasty disease and vaccination still provides protection.

Oh, well said, Emilyontmoor.

Beachcomber You are quoting from a politically motivated western source with a political agenda. Do you actually believe anything that has emerged in the populist agenda embraced by right wing Republicans and media. These are the same people who claimed their elections were rigged, that implicitly supported the storming of the Capitol, promotes voter suppression, anti abortion etc. It is very much in their interests to be able to pin blame on China for the “China virus” as they branded it. Of course it has become an issue that American politicians have to be seen to take seriously because it has been elevated politically, as with election rigging, abortion (tragically), white supremacy, the libertarian agenda on pandemic management and all the other issues that loom large in American but thankfully not (yet anyway) in the rest of the world.

It certainly doesn’t mean we have to take seriously a conspiracy theory that has been discredited widely in the rest of the world by Scientists and academics and other experts on China based on “the facts, science, critical thinking, analysis” It simply makes no sense knowing what we do about the science and Chinese culture and politics.

I am only too happy to cast shade on the Chinese government on a lot of issues where the facts and analysis stack up. In fact I have been posting on here about what was going on in Xinjiang when all the concern as an issue du jour was on the plight of Tibet. On this one though it really makes no sense scientifically, culturally, politically or indeed in terms of the most pervasive sectarian ideology, Confucianism, that influences all Chinese people, in China and the diaspora.

I was actually in China during SARS, we were told early on that it was a lucky escape. That this time it was not easily transmitted but that an airborne virus would come along that posed a much greater risk to the world (and that was from an epidemiologist advising the Hong Kong government who had been involved in the response to HIV ) Lessons were learned and there were countries around the world who managed this pandemic much better than others as a result. It wasn’t just the Chinese government systems that failed to respond adequately to the virus, many other governments reacted in a complacent entitled way, and didn’t take notice of what other countries, the Taiwanese especially, were trying to tell us as early as December 2019 or of the lessons that we could have learnt from them. The root of all that is the same othering that is helping this conspiracy theory to stay afloat.

[quote riveted1]**@Beachcomber* @LifeIsWhat*

The immediate threat to the UK is not China's role in the pandemic, but controlling the huge incoming omicron wave we have that is exponentially growing.

This is why measures such as encouragement of vaccination, masks, ventilation, asymptomatic testing, distancing are so important right.

I think distracting yourself with China gain of function research/Pfizer profits/US benefitting from the pandemic etc, is more like "burying your head" in the sand.

Of course holding people accountable is important, as is identifying the origins of SARS-COV-2, but so are the other measures I have described. No one will give a shite if the origin story is cracked but the UK is dealing with catatrosphic levels of coronavirus & people are dying of non-COVID health emergencies.

The mind boggles![/quote]
Agree 100% i guess when things around us seem scary and unpredictable then focusing on china and the orgins, which is across other side of world is "safer" for some people,u have repeatedly said we can be upset about both at same time its not either or,