For those that are NOT vaxxed - would you get vaxxed only for travel?

[WoodlandWalks123]

I chose not to get vaccinated (I am in low risk category and already had covid). I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of that choice.

Now, DP booked me and DM on a luxury cruise as a surprise present - which would be so lovely and DM is really looking forward to it - it’s a bit of a once in a lifetime sort of thing to be able to go on this / spend time with her and I’ve got it in my mind that life is short and unsure when we would go again.

When he booked, the rules were that from April all vaccination rules would end. Now they have changed their terms and require double vaxx. They will refund money if we cancel due to this change so there is a get out. My DM is vaxxed but obviously I am not.

I am genuinely nervous about getting vaccinated when it’s just so new (in relative vaccine terms) and we don’t know long term effects, and the mRNA technology is also unknown. I am not a die hard anti-vaxxer or conspiracy theorist.

I feel that I would only be doing it for this cruise - general air travel / country requirements seem to be opening up and not requiring vaccines increasingly so I don’t think I would need it to go abroad in the fullness of time.

If you have chosen not to be vaccinated, would you get vaccinated to go on a once in a lifetime (but only 4 day) cruise? Or would you get a refund? If you would get vaccinated, which of the vaccines do you think is most benign?

”Posts like this do harm”.

Give over.

Victoria Male is a key researcher in this field - she is hardly likely to “dismiss” women’s experiences given that women are the focus of her research.

In fact, I’d like more women to be aware of Victoria Male and get involved in her research, because surely that’s the way forward?

An interesting analogy on facial boils.

It genuinely puzzles me that so many parents are keen to have their children vaccinated against Covid but then fail to get their children vaccinated against chicken pox which causes around 20 deaths of children per year plus complications such as scaring, bacterial infections, meningitis, pneumonia.

Long term it is also causes shingles to one in four later in adult life as well as being dangerous to pregnant women and those with suppressed immune systems such as those undergoing chemotherapy.

So the point being made truly is suggesting those who've said they know people injured, is that they are lying, yes?

No I wouldn't get vaccinated to travel - I remain unvaccinated (for health reasons plus a needle phobia).

I'm not sure where you are geographically but in the UK the chickenpox vaccine isn't routinely offered. In fact I only found out it existed last year here on MN and I suspect many people in the UK are not aware of it.
Are your figures for child chickenpox deaths (20 per year) for the US as in the UK it's much lower - According to the ONS between 1 to 5 children under 19 have died from chickenpox each year 2015-2020 with a total of 18 deaths over 5 years in <19 year olds.

In the UK, sensibly, we don't routinely vaccinate against a harmless childhood illness because it provides protection from shingles later in life, and also for older people because shingles only affects you if you have a weakened immune system.

The idea is that we get a community boost via natural varicella in the community in children, where it's mostly harmless. And we would try to ensure a healthy older population too, ideally.

In the US where they vaccinate they have many adult deaths from varicella as immunity wears off and it becomes very dangerous to have a first time infection. The disease is described very differently here and in the US. An example of vaccination's politicisation in real time.

The fact is that a child in the developed world who is healthy is very unlikely to suffer complications from a routine childhood illness and therefore vaccination may not be necessary for those specific children. So a blanket policy is applied because you can't really have time nor resource to assess every situation properly.

If you have time and inclination to take charge of your child's medical decisions yourself then great but not everyone wants to or can.

There's another vaccine option now, it's not mRNA - perhaps you gp could arrange that one for you.

I'm guessing you are going with Cunard as they've just changed the rules ... by the way it's the American cdc demanding it as they enter us waters

In the UK, sensibly, we don't routinely vaccinate against a harmless childhood illness because it provides protection from shingles later in life

Sorry that's wrong - you can only get shingles if you've previously been infected by the chicken pox virus. This virus lies dormant and can then reactivate later in life to cause shingles (very often if you are in poor health or under stress). You can of course get a vaccine to prevent shingles (free in the over 70s).

@gogohm yes you guessed correctly re the liner. My cruise doesn’t go in US waters so it’s really annoying that they apply this as a blanket policy!

@LeftFootForward

Link for the 20 deaths per year (mostly children) linked to chicken pox. Chicken pox itself is unlikely to cause death but it can cause bacterial infections, meningitis, pneumonia which does kill.

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/chickenpox-varicella

Chicken pox vaccine has been licensed for over 25 years and most other countries (except the UK) vaccinate their children against chicken pox. In conversations with non UK parents they view the non vaccination of children against chicken pox as cruel, barbaric and out dated. So I am genuinely surprised that you were unaware of the vaccine.

Whether you choose to have your child vaccinated is of course entirely your choice as is any vaccine , but given the risks it is recommended by the WHO.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine

Out of interest, if every single poster (or the vast majority) had said yes, they would get the vaccine purely so they could travel, would you then change your mind?

Because if you would be swayed by advice from internet randoms, then I don't think you need to trouble yourself too much with the scientific evidence...

I'm a vaccinator. There's probably 60-70% of people (outside those over 75 wanting second boosters) who want it purely for travel purposes. It blows my mind. Had a particularly nasty anti vaxxer screaming in my face that I was 'murdering babies and children in cold blood' this week. Vile.
I honestly think it's odd that so many people can be so 'anti' until a cheap flight to Lanzarote changes their mind in a heartbeat. I'm all for freedom of choice, respecting people's opinions, but when they flip like a switch for a sun lounger and a cheap pint, it just feels all kinds of wrong considering what the world has just experienced, how many people have died.

@leopardprintlindt sorry you have to deal with such awful behaviour, regardless of whether I personally want the vaccine or not, you are doing something so good for people.

In conversations with non UK parents they view the non vaccination of children against chicken pox as cruel, barbaric and out dated.

Not my experience, when living overseas it was just another childhood vaccination that was required to attend school, can’t remember anyone being particular exercised about it.

Interestingly, in the UK in the late 1990s it wasn’t thought “cruel and barbaric” to refuse the MMR vaccine (thanks to Andrew Wakefield) and yet childhood diseases like measles and mumps can have catastrophic outcomes.

The technologies deployed to make the vaccines are not new, they pre date the pandemic and have a good safety record. What’s novel are the virus antigens, but they are pretty much the same thing you are exposed to when you’re infected with the virus.

So I don’t think there’s much to be concerned about. I would be gutted to miss a lovely holiday and just get vaccinated, but if you don’t feel comfortable, don’t do it and don’t go.

@reeeeeeee My child's apparently perfectly healthy young adult friend died in the first wave, his relatives and friends wish he'd had the chance of a vaccine. You have no idea how you will react to getting covid until you get it and when you get it you dont know if it will be worse next time, or the time after that.

Same with the vaccine.

Yes if you look at CDC 1/3 people in the US get shingles while in the UK (check NHS) it's 1/4 and we don't vaccinate for chicken pox while they do.

Quick search of both websites will confirm.

it has been officially recognized that covid vaccines do not protect against catching and spreading covid. The only hope they give is that milder illness rather than getting to hospital.
I am surprised some countries still require covid vaccines for travelling.

@weneedtotalkaboutezra much greater risk without the vaccine. If you want to damage your fertility, risk yourself if you do get pregnant and maybe leave a baby without a mother, risk long covid, risk who knows what greater risks in later life that's your problem.

"much greater" - you've completely made that up though .

What's my current risk of complications from covid as a healthy middle aged woman?

It's pretty low, and how much do three jabs improve that risk? Not a lot! Not a lot at all if you cared to actually look at the data.

And what's my current risk of complications from the vaccine? It's zero. There are known complications. I will keep my low risk of covid complications and keep my zero risk of vaccine complications and it's not a problem, not one bit.

Go get your seventh booster.

mRNA vaccine technology has been around for 30+ years www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

Covid is closely related to SARS and MERS, vaccine research was advanced for these and much of the foundation for the Covid vaccines.

I would say Pfizer is the best vaccine, certainly the most commonly used one.

Our bodies are producing proteins all the time from mRNA.. here is a video on that
(A level biology)

All mRNA vaccines do is introduce mRNA that is specific to the virus. Ribosomes translate the protein and the immune system recognise it as foreign. Et voila protection.

There are side effects, but pretty much all of them also occur with covid infection and have a higher incidence of doing so.

Please take your time, consider what is right for you.

Personally we all made sure we got vaxxed due to health concerns, however probably would have done it for holidays anyway as strains circulating in other countries may be quite different to what we’ve been exposed to here.

Uuugggh I can’t believe this chicken pox nonsense is circulating again. Comparing it with covid is ludicrous.

@1dayatatime

In 2020 4 people died of chicken pox
75,000 died of Covid.

Full stats here:-

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/childdeathsandhospitalisationsinvolvingcovid19andchickenpox

Reasoning for not rolling out a chicken pox vaccine is that mortality is very low and that the burden of shingles would increase without prior childhood exposure to chicken pox.

@Lily7050 the purpose of vaccination is to primarily to reduce morbidity and mortality. Not to give sterilising immunity. The vaccines are still doing their job, viral load is still reduced comparably to delta. Current variants are better at getting around the innate immune system and this is why there is greater transmissibility/infection but you are protected from severe disease and death. Kind of important.

@weneedtotalkaboutezra
my experience with female friends/family

26 - long covid
36 - dead, blood clot
42 - ventilator 10wks, long covid

Vast body of work showing side effects while present as lesser than risk from covid itself. Visual abstract of one such study attached. I’m sure you can go on google scholar and do your own research. Nobody is completely making it up… all Covid related research is freely available at present.

** May I also say I have known many friends and family to have covid and be ok, but all of them were vaccinated. Three examples given were earlier prior to the vaccine drive

@1dayatatime just to underline and give stats specific to children as you’d mentioned this.

Between 2015 and 2020 no more than 5 children per year died from chicken pox.

In 2020 15 children died directly from Covid, with a further 18 deaths involving Covid. That’s before you consider long covid/other potential long term impacts as yet unclear.

Don’t wish to be morbid but really people need to stop comparing it with Covid. It’s just silly.