If you have friends who are conspiracy theorists/hate masks/vaccines...

[Campfirewood]

I really recommend the Royal Institution Christmas lectures from the BBC... I've really enjoyed (my geek-ery coming out here) learning about why the coronavirus is so successful, why masks work, how we test (why is a PCR more sensitive than LFT) and then how vaccines work. There are over 3 hours of info/tests/experiments but it's really interesting. Including the professor who helped create the AZ Vaccine, Katie Ewer, (bit of a girl crush on her).

As someone who is generally nervous about vaccines (but I've had them all, whilst scared!) it really helped. They are very intelligent people, who cumulatively, have studied their fields for hundreds of years telling me why it's just science and, makes sense has really helped.

Anyway, they're here...

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00pmbqq/royal-institution-christmas-lectures

One thing that present help with regards to conspiracies, is when x person at the pub or cafe is talking about e.g. Microchips, or other aspects and people then start to believe in the same information and disregard the official information.

Doesent

I'd be interested to know the numbers for those hospitalised with flu like illnesses during 2018 & 2019. I'd be very surprised if they were massively less than those shown during 2020/2021.

Here’s a report that looks at the 2017-18 and 18-19 flu seasons (17-18 was the recent ‘bad’ flu season. This is for England, and runs Sept-March.

During the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons there were 46,215 and 39,670 influenza-related hospital admissions respectively.

There are currently around 15k Covid patients in hospital who have Covid (the majority are ‘for Covid’ rather than an incidental diagnosis). Admissions in England are currently running around 2k per day, though of course they haven’t been running at that level since September. It will be possible to go back through the Covid dashboard and create a time series.

[quote Cornettoninja]@jewel1968 I think masks are a tricky one and depend on perceptions of what the goal is. Pulling numbers out of my arse here; but I perceive masks that are 25% effective at preventing infections are a good thing, someone else may perceive that 25% effective isn’t worth the limitations and problems caused by masks. Also you can find research that correctly states the virus is much smaller than any common mask could hope to reliably stop but that doesn’t take into consideration that the virus can and does travel on droplets which a common mask can stop.

Tbh the mask debate is probably one of the more valid debates there is in this pandemic but it’s massively over saturated and clouded by political ideology at this point.[/quote]
There are also different ways to look at the data in terms of what you really accomplish. 25% sounds effective but when you look at how many infections it really prevents, it seems less amazing. Then you consider that there are lots of places where people interact without masks on top of that, and it seems even less useful.

There is a lot of debate over how effective lockdowns really are, or things like proof of vaccination - I don't think there is any real research on the latter at all. There is a long history of practice in terms of how to deal with vaccination resistant populations and they don't include that.

The other question is, what does it mean to be anti-vaccination. The word itself brings up the idea of people who are against the concept at all, and I don't personally know any doctors who think that. But there are doctors who have questions about some vaccinations in terms of public health questions (like chicken pox) or who think that giving vaccinations to newborns like they do in the US is a bad idea.

And I know a lot of doctors who are quite conservative about new medications in general, until they have been around a few years and there has been a chance to see if they have any issues. Because it really isn't uncommon for new medications to have issues that are only revealed when they have been in general use for a bit. They have side effects, or don't work as well as thought, or interactions with other medications, and so on.

There are unanswered questions still around the covid vaccination, such as whether kids might be better off to have the natural infection.

People taking the approach that it's all unanimous and clear is just unrealistic and it really tends to push people away if they already have doubts because it seems dishonest.

I read an interesting study out of MIT that touches on this, it was looking at how people who were anti-masking or disagreed with certain other covid measures could be better communicated with - if they would respond to better visuals, or explanations of the data, etc. What they concluded was that no, actually their understanding of data and how to evaluate it was as good or even better, and they were actually less naive about science. The main difference, the study said, from other people was in their attitude - they were more committed as a group to questioning the information they received. Keep in mind the people who did the study were actually looking to change the minds of these people in support of public health.

There’s an interesting series of articles in Forbes on pre-pandemic vaccine refusal and hesitancy which raises similar issues - particularly around core beliefs and values - that’s worth a read.

@SantaClawsServiette Your posts above are very interesting, thank you for them.

@JassyRadlett

I read an interesting study out of MIT that touches on this, it was looking at how people who were anti-masking or disagreed with certain other covid measures could be better communicated with - if they would respond to better visuals, or explanations of the data, etc. What they concluded was that no, actually their understanding of data and how to evaluate it was as good or even better, and they were actually less naive about science. The main difference, the study said, from other people was in their attitude - they were more committed as a group to questioning the information they received. Keep in mind the people who did the study were actually looking to change the minds of these people in support of public health.

There’s an interesting series of articles in Forbes on pre-pandemic vaccine refusal and hesitancy which raises similar issues - particularly around core beliefs and values - that’s worth a read.

Thanks, I'll look at those.

People taking the approach that it's all unanimous and clear is just unrealistic and it really tends to push people away if they already have doubts because it seems dishonest.

@SantaClawsServiette - This is exactly how I feel! Thanks for your posts - they're really rational and balanced.

@nojudgementhere

People taking the approach that it's all unanimous and clear is just unrealistic and it really tends to push people away if they already have doubts because it seems dishonest.

@SantaClawsServiette - This is exactly how I feel! Thanks for your posts - they're really rational and balanced.

Couldn't agree more.

It misses the fact that 'the science' is not the only concern that people have. Even if it was, science doesn't create policy —it's just an information point.

People will bring other factors such as their employment, the well-being of their families, and their ability to enjoy life they way they would want to. As soon as we moved away from the simple objective of keeping cases low for the sake of it, things got complicated.

And I know a lot of doctors who are quite conservative about new medications in general, until they have been around a few years and there has been a chance to see if they have any issues. Because it really isn't uncommon for new medications to have issues that are only revealed when they have been in general use for a bit. They have side effects, or don't work as well as thought, or interactions with other medications, and so on

I note that you're being careful with your wording here, and rightly so. Medications can have effects which aren't seen until some time later, but vaccines cannot – anyone who believes that does not have an understanding of how vaccines work in a human body.

Side effects – and there undoubtedly can be some, as there can from any vaccine – show up almost immediately in those affected and can have long-lasting effects. What they can't do is suddenly appear out of nowhere many months later.

We almost certainly already know all we are ever likely to know about existing Covid vaccines in terms of side effects. New vaccines could, of course, present different and as yet unknown side effects, but the ones in existence now? Nope, that's not how vaccines work.