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!

Thank you for posting interesting stuff.

What is really interesting for me is that posters' take away from the things I have posted seems to be that you think I'm angry with China because I'm being propagandised by western press.

When in fact the links I (rather randomly selected) are all asking for the United States to clarify their involvement in the research under question.

Earlier in the thread, my posts were criticized for minimizing coronavirus (don't really know where that came from as I absolutely do not minimize covid - I think it is a dangerous virus).

I then reposted that I don't minimize covid as I have been really sick with it and lost a friend to it and then I was accused of being upset / bitter / angry and looking for somone / thing to blame (i.e. as being a bit overly emotional and irrational).

All rather contradictory.

I am perplexed by posters who don't seem to care that all the evidence is currently very much pointing towards human activity being the origins of this pandemic. Although I understand how fear can both focus and narrow the mind...

On an individual level no, I have a family member and some friends who are unvaccinated, I just think we'll that's their choice isn't it.

On a population level though? I despair at the number of unvaccinated people and the destruction having them unvaccinated will cause.

I know it doesn't really work but the mind organises things how it sees fit I suppose .

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041593/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-50.pdf

It’s not narrow minded to be annoyed by those selfish enough to not get vaccinated. Unfortunately the UK has a pitiful uptake in vaccination rates which is why we’re now suffering so much more than other local countries. I can’t wait until it’s mandatory. And I don’t mean people will be forced to have it, they’ll just be (rightly) excluded from society until they do. When that happens we can deal with it like flu. Selfish, uneducated idiots who think their ‘internet research’ is better than actual science. Obviously I’m excluding those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

No the vaccination rate isn’t pitiful, why are you misrepresenting the facts? @Lokdok

@paranoidnamechanger

No the vaccination rate isn’t pitiful, why are you misrepresenting the facts? *@Lokdok*

Pitiful is pretty subjective. And it very much depends on region. Some of the London boroughs have comparatively low rates, with fewer than 70% having had at least one dose. I don’t think it’s a coincidence their rates are currently sky high.

I know about London but in the UK as a whole the vaccination rate is 80%, so not really a pitiful number, in my view. It's not like it was ever going to be 100%, was it?

Because the more people who are vaccinated the less pressure on the health service. If you are vaccinated you can still catch covid but you are far less likely to need medical treatment, and for much shorter times

Beachcomber Although I understand how fear can both focus and narrow the mind...

Oh that will be it. All those scientists who have spent their lives studying viruses and all those experts who have lived in and studied China are failing to see the truth because fear has narrowed their minds!

No Beachcomber and all those right wing internet and media sources must be in fact fearless and capable of wider thinking…..

Speaking personally I am fully vaccinated and had Covid asymptomatically which according to a study I am part of is largely down to my genes. Another family member is part of a study that showed they had a super response to the vaccine possibly as a result of our previous exposure to SARS (which also equipped us with the resilience to cope with another epidemic). So without being complacent I have done as much as I possibly can to reduce my need to have any fear, or to cause other people fear by being a source of transmission.

@Beachcomber you’re not making a particularly logical argument. The C19 virus is here. It’s with us, however it got here. And vaccination is one of the chief means we have if mitigating it’s effects.

If you’re concerned about controlling the spread of the virus, and helping people to fight it off, vaccination is important. It’s not logical to say that we can’t start to control the virus until we know how it came into being.

But if you insist on derailing the discussion on this thread, then your insistence on conspiracy theories around a lab leak is pretty spurious. Have you ever been to China? Or a Chinese “underground” market? What do you know about Chinese scientific research labs? What do you know about the ways viruses mutate and their capacity to jump species?

All of these things far more likely than a deliberate Chinese tactic. The spread of C-19 in China has had the same devastating effects as everywhere else and Chinese culture around “losing face” means that a deliberate action or an accident will both be seen as hugely shameful.

If you think cui bono ? Who benefits? It’s certainly not the Chinese.

I tend to plump for cock up rather than conspiracy. Viruses mutate rapidly they’re pretty primitive organisms which exist simply to replicate. Go back to your basic understanding of evolutionary biology (if you have any scientific education). It’s exciting to dream up complex conspiracies but leave that to Hollywood.

Kayce Absolutely. The first thing that Xi did when his eye finally fell on what was happening in Wuhan in mid Jan was to convene a management committee (I forget the actual title but it was very long) that didn’t have one single public health official on it, they were all officials whose skill was propaganda, The other thing he did was to lean on WHO to make sure they ignored Taiwan. Practically the first thing the Committee did was to deny that the virus originated in China to try and counter the huge loss of face with the domestic audience that was Taiwan having spotted the virus on planes from Wuhan in mid Dec and acted, and tried to tell the world. Xi is placing a great deal of emphasis on “wolf warrior diplomacy” and his aim to take back Taiwan, something that was really just window dressing in the past. We have seen what he has done to Hong Kong, the next world crisis might well be when he sees an opportunity to invade. So being caught out like that was a huge issue for him personally.

The cock up on Covid is one that has happened again and again in Chinese history . The Great Famine too was caused by a centralised government that retained the power to act but didn’t listen to what was happening on the ground. It took a very brave senior official to bring it to Mao’s attention at which point he acted but only after many millions died.

Because people who won’t get the vaccination are prolonging this for the rest of us. Why should the vaccinated lockdown or have restrictions to protect the unvaccinated?

@KaycePollard

I'm going to stop posting on the thread because what I'm posting about has now become a derail (I initially mentioned the lab leak theory way back in the thread to say that I think that we should not be angry with each other so I was initially on topic but I don't want to derail the thread any longer with debate about that subject).

Apologies OP for the derail.

How anyone can think this is an acceptable way to behave is beyond me.

@LadyCatStark

Because people who won’t get the vaccination are prolonging this for the rest of us. Why should the vaccinated lockdown or have restrictions to protect the unvaccinated?

You do know that we cannot ever get 100% people vaccinated, right? Even in China, where vaccination is a "political task" for everyone, it is still not 100%. If you are looking for 100% vaccination rate (currently 80% in the UK) to relax/be less frustrated (which I understand, as if I believed the same thing, I would be the anxious as hell), you should manage your expectation.

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

Simple - because they are being selfish.

Unvaccinated they are...

• More likely to catch and transmit the virus to others.

• More likely to get so ill from COVID they will need to occupy a hospital bed / ambulance that could be used for others needing treatment (COVID or other stuff).

It's very simple. Don't need a 20 page thread to answer the question.

If you want a long read try this...

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/oh-my-fucking-god-get-the-fucking-vaccine-already-you-fucking-fucks

I would try not to show it, but yes I do judge people who have chosen not to have it. Because it doesn’t just affect them eg my colleague who felt too anxious to have it then needed much more time off work because she caught covid badly (I’m glad she’s ok now) but this impacted on my whole team. I hadn’t previously known she wasn’t jabbed and felt that she’d been putting us all at increased risk when we were working in the office together.

These are important principles. If the majority genuinely believe that the threat of covid is so grave that we ought to cede bodily autonomy to the state and no longer practice medicine on the basis of informed consent then fair enough, but it is a huge societal change nevertheless

Yes, but there's a big difference between being angry with the unvaccinated and believing that the vaccine should be compulsory.

I think (barring special cases) that antivaxxers are idiots, and that it is people's duty to be vaccinated, and it makes me annoyed to hear about people's stupid reasons for not having the vaccine. But I believe people should choose to have it, not be compelled to have it, because bodily autonomy is important.

Absolutely. Lots of of people are angry on both sides and that is lawful. Be angry. Don't take out on anyone and if you have to punch something punch a pillow.

I don't think there will be compulsory vaccination in the UK, at least not further than we currently have it (the unvaccinated cannot go into certain places I think and travel is harder and you cannot work in care homes etc unless a medical reason not to have the vaccine)

It's a really poorly-phrased question, to boot. I'm still angry about Torvill and Dean's bronze at Lillehammer, ffs. People are allowed to be angry about whatever they choose: and anti-vaxxers aren't even a trivial example.