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!

It’s not acceptable to be rude to people about anything.

I do, however, have little respect for those who choose not to have the vaccine. It is selfish and ignorant, but I think that to myself rather than say it to people.

The only exception to this is those who are genuinely needle phobic. A good friend is phobic and I know that there is no way she will be able to have the vaccine just as she hasn’t had any other vaccines, despite trying so hard to do so. She is desperately hoping that a nasal spray will eventually be offered.

Is it right to get angry with people who have chosen not to get vaccinated? That depends on when you think it is right to get angry. Willingly not getting vaccinated for anything other than genuine medical or psychological reasons (allergies, severe phobia, immune issues) meets my threshold for righteous anger.
It is not just a personal decision, it is also a societal decision. No one really knows whether their decision is in their own best interests, however informed they believe their decision is. But they know it is in society's best interests. It's a bit like 'the right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins'.

@Jacaranda75

There is an aged care facility around the corner from me. One of the carers refused to get the jab, caught Covid then gave it to two of the elderly folk. They both died. She killed them, basically.

If you don’t want to get vaccinated, then stay home. Don’t put others at risk because of your selfishness and stupidity.

The vaccinated people can still catch and transmit Covid though. So the carer could be double jabbed + booster and still pass the covid to the elderly people (RIP to them by the way).

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I'm not vaccinated. I'm happy to talk about why but IME there isn't really any point because no one wants to actually hear it.

In my experience, I think some people get annoyed at unvaccinated people because they present the alternative, the possibility of saying no and they don't like that. They'd rather everyone just went ahead so that they didn't have to question their decision. I am totally sympathetic to that issue and I don't generally discuss vaccination with people like that as they don't seem able to really discuss it. They want to call me stupid and selfish because that allows them not to engage with the reality of it and I'm ok with that.

Other people really believe that if everyone were vaccinated then the virus would disappear or something. That viewpoint is impervious to reality so there's no point in engaging with them. They want to a bad guy and the unvaccinated are it. I think that's easier for them than to realise you can't really 'fight' a virus and a lot of what's been done over the last year has pointlessly damaged everyone for no real result.

There are others who know that vaccination isn't the magic cure it's made out to be but they feel playing along with the illusion that it is is in everyone's best interest. It's a sort of patronising, parental viewpoint. People like that bother me the most tbh. They definitely know better but they believe that being truthful would 'confuse people' (ie people stupider than they are) and so everyone must repeat the 'vaccination is great' line over and over.

I think a lot of people will look back on their attitudes to vaccination and wonder what on earth happened to them. Their responses are understandable given how they've been treated so they don't necessarily surprise me but I don't know if they'll be so forgiving of themselves. I'm sure there will be a lot of self-flagellating Guardian articles in years to come. I look forward to them with bated breath.

Thank you for putting into words a lot of what I am seeing.

I will also add that the pandemic is not over yet. The situation is still evolving and we won't know for quite some time what the impact of mass vaccination will be.

I think endless post about unvaccinated people complaining about their freedom and being treated unfairly is draining. They chose not to get vaccinated. So whatever inconvenience they encounter because of it. I wish they just stop complaining. And we can move on.

@MaxNormal

you have a societal duty to be fully vaccinated

I think there's a fundamental difference of beliefs around this. Do we value personal and bodily autonomy or a more collectivist approach?

Personally I think that people should be entitled to make medical decisions that are informed and in their own best interests.

If we allow a more collectivist approach in order to deal with covid, we give up our bodily autonomy to the state. Further down the line there might he another crises, say overpopulation, and they can then use the precedence to for instance mandate birth control.

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.

So do you refuse childhood vaccinations too? so much ignorance

I'm angry at their constant whining and total lack of understanding of basic science.

I despair that these people are allowed to vote.

Selfish cunts, most of them.

I don't care if someone is vaccinated or not. It should be a choice. I think it is a very dangerous road to go down if we are going to force people to have a vaccination.

To begin with it was just two vaccinations, now everybody has to have a booster and the immunosuppressed are going to have to have a 4th jab.

COVID is here to stay for the foreseeable future. All the while that people can travel to other countries the virus will keep mutating and we will keep having to have more and more vaccinations. The only way to eliminate it is for every country to close their borders for a certain amount of time and that will never happen.

It's not acceptable

For anyone with needle phobia: I used to be utterly terrified of needles, didn’t have some vaccinations as a teen due to my phobia, used to cry, be sick, and in utter terror at the thought of a jab or blood test. Eventually I decided i needed to get over it so I booked myself in to become a blood donor. I went with a friend who was brilliant as I was shaking so much the whole way through. But somehow, I managed it, and I kept going every few months until I was calm about it. It really worked, and now I’m able to have jabs and blood tests fine. I still look away from the minute they start prepping everything so I never see the needle.

I am astonished that you can’t understand why this annoys people. You may not agree with them but surely you can understand their reasoning?

Maybe if I lay it out simply for you. The more people that are vaccinated the fewer people will end up seriously ill and in hospital.

So by lots of people refusing the vaccine, hospital admissions and death rates will be higher.

The higher the level of admissions and deaths the higher the level of restrictions we will ALL have to live under.

So by claiming their right to refuse the vaccine they are limiting the freedom of everyone else.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I'm not vaccinated. I'm happy to talk about why but IME there isn't really any point because no one wants to actually hear it.

In my experience, I think some people get annoyed at unvaccinated people because they present the alternative, the possibility of saying no and they don't like that. They'd rather everyone just went ahead so that they didn't have to question their decision. I am totally sympathetic to that issue and I don't generally discuss vaccination with people like that as they don't seem able to really discuss it. They want to call me stupid and selfish because that allows them not to engage with the reality of it and I'm ok with that.

Other people really believe that if everyone were vaccinated then the virus would disappear or something. That viewpoint is impervious to reality so there's no point in engaging with them. They want to a bad guy and the unvaccinated are it. I think that's easier for them than to realise you can't really 'fight' a virus and a lot of what's been done over the last year has pointlessly damaged everyone for no real result.

There are others who know that vaccination isn't the magic cure it's made out to be but they feel playing along with the illusion that it is is in everyone's best interest. It's a sort of patronising, parental viewpoint. People like that bother me the most tbh. They definitely know better but they believe that being truthful would 'confuse people' (ie people stupider than they are) and so everyone must repeat the 'vaccination is great' line over and over.

I think a lot of people will look back on their attitudes to vaccination and wonder what on earth happened to them. Their responses are understandable given how they've been treated so they don't necessarily surprise me but I don't know if they'll be so forgiving of themselves. I'm sure there will be a lot of self-flagellating Guardian articles in years to come. I look forward to them with bated breath.

Very articulately put.

When I see anti vaxxers turning up at kids schools to harrass children and invading hospitals saying doctors and nurses should face the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, it seems to me their conspiracy theories are fatally flawed.

Realistically a government that wanted to reduce population by killing everyone off by "the clot shot" would surely look at these people and think hmm are these really the people we want to procreate the earth. Surely if you want a conspiracy theory it would be far more likely that the vaccine would protect the people the government want to survive.

I get angry with those who are unvaccinated and actually lost my temper with a stranger recently who was bleating loudly about how many people were dying as a result of AstraZeneca. I didn't shout or anything like that, but voiced my opinion which upset her. I regretted it afterwards because it was an utterly pointless discussion and came from a place of anger (within me).

I get angry with those who are unvaccinated for the same reason that I would be angry with a smoker who is smoking around children, or a woman smoking while pregnant, or a parent refusing to allow a child to receive the MMR vaccine. These are decisions that harm others.

Refusing to get vaccinated is so utterly selfish and I feel angry with those decide to believe nutters, conspiracy theorists, social media propaganda and other rubbish, rather than listening to what qualified professionals have to say. That ignorance is utterly wilful and there is no good excuse for it.

I know a woman with a baby in an ICU unit right now. He has been in and out of hospital over the past year. Life must be so hard for her - the constant worry about getting the virus, being cut off from him, trying to keep her job which requires interaction with othrs- it makes me want to cry. How much harder and riskier is her life (and her baby's life) right now knowing that people are walking around choosing not to be vaccinated?

Yes, I am angry.

Because they are taking unnecessary risks with their health and will expect to be cared for by the NHS for the deliberate choice to take a risk.

What about somebody who has health anxiety and is extremely worried about side effects from the vaccine?

Because if we go into restrictions again, why does their right to choose not to have one trump the rights of the whole country in restriction?

Why are they more important than everyone else? Sturgeon has just said households of up to 3 can meet. Would she say that if everyone had a booster?

So where’s the problem?

This. Their "personal" decision not to get vaccinated perpetuates the severity of the pandemic for everyone else.

@Plaiceandchips

What about somebody who has health anxiety and is extremely worried about side effects from the vaccine?

You will have to take a number, two years into this.

@Plaiceandchips

What about somebody who has health anxiety and is extremely worried about side effects from the vaccine?

I have health anxiety and made the choice to be vaccinated, because the risk of either dying of covid or ending up in a Derek Draper scenario seemed worse than the possible side effects from the vaccine.

@AnkleDeep

I'm angry at their constant whining and total lack of understanding of basic science.

I despair that these people are allowed to vote.

Selfish cunts, most of them.

I find people with your attitude far more frightening than people who don't want a vaccine.

My Aussie relatives say opinion there is hating on the unvaccinated for taking up hospital beds unnecessarily.

Personally I have no issue with folk choosing not to vaccinate but I also think they do need to accept reasonable consequences such as having to test daily in certain situations.

@AnkleDeep

I'm angry at their constant whining and total lack of understanding of basic science.

I despair that these people are allowed to vote.

Selfish cunts, most of them.

I'm less bothered by the hypothetical genuinely stupid antivaxxer who also believes the royals are lizards and Bill Gates secretly rules the world than I am by sanctimonious authoritarians who would happily take away the suffrage rights of people they disagree strongly enough with.

As for the posters saying effectively 'you can't complain about the consequences', you could say that about any government decision. Don't like what the Chinese government did to families with more than one child? You chose to have a second one, don't moan about it! People can complain and protest if they want. That's part of living in a free society. Don't like reading it on MN? There are plenty of other things to read about instead.

What about somebody who has health anxiety and is extremely worried about side effects from the vaccine?

Vaccine bullies will say its only 1 in a million coincidence. Shit happens.