COVID vaccine? Does it do anything?

[Greybottle]

I jumped at getting the COVID vaccines when they came out and I got all the vaccines that I was eligible for to date except for this year.

I got COVID in the summer time and I wasn't able to get the vaccine this winter. My GP recommended a 4 month wait.

It's just I got COVID twice. Once in 2022 and I had that bad too. I wasn't hospitalised but still I was ill with fever, body aches, headaches and coughs for over a week. I was rushed back to work prepaturely when I still wasn't 100% better.

I got COVID this summer too. I was floored with it.

A lot of people were floored with it this summer. Even though we got the COVID vaccines.

It's just I got a reminder text to book the vaccine today and I just don't know.

I am not anti vaccine but what is the point of the vaccine when youre still going to get exposed and become ill to this anyways?

I got flu in 2004 or 2005 and I was getting flu vaccine because of my work from about 2008 and I never had flue since 04/05. The flu vaccine works. But I am questioning the COVID vaccine? What is the point of going out of my way to travel to an establishment to get jabbed and sore for a few days and if I am exposed to COVID, I am likely still going to get it.

Of course doctors know who is likely to be at risk - Covid wasn’t unique in that. However Covid was a new pandemic where no one had a crystal ball as to what might happen. Hospitals struggled but thankfully the vaccine rollout was successful.

No one could accurately forecast how many deaths there would around the world.

sorry, keep getting you mixed up with @user44221 who has many medics in the family, none of who were apparently aware of who was most at risk ( hope they never treat me!)

DH worked on Covid wards and supported the vaccine rollout. I was also a volunteer at a vaccine centre.

What did you do?

you want to know what I did for a living in 2020/2021?
Or what I did in my free time?
You do realise that's an odd question for a complete stranger.
Could you tell me the relevance to the discussion?

@Notmoog

But that’s what your basically saying.

The major reason why hospitals were able to cope was because people got vaccinated. Some countries like Sweden it was over 80% of the country vaccinated.

So I take it you’d prefer the situation where control methods like masks, vaccines, social distancing were not used.

So what happens to the hospitals? How do they cope? We already had ambulances queuing outside. You’d like to increase the demand on their resources?

You’d think : screw anyone who needs medical help, so long as I don’t have to take any prevention measures in a pandemic, then fine.

And then @Notmoog - you’ll just have to accept that most people think that’s a pretty stupid and arrogant mindset as part of a society.

ok, you are making no sense whatseover and are literally making up crap.
I suggest reading the thread slowly and carefully and you'll realise that you really are making a bit of a tit of yourself.
I won't be responding to you any more as you are making up stuff I've not said and being weirdly aggro.

Throughout the thread you’ve been very critical (almost conspiracy theorist) about the vaccine rollout and questioning of the hospital care provided to patients. You seem to doubt the severity of the pandemic but don’t seem to have done anything to help anyone.

@notmoog I’ve seen you on many other threads and you’re basically spouting the same rubbish and annoying people. I think you enjoy it.

super relevant comment again.
It's like discussing things with 6 year olds

Very simply - the vaccine reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it.

It really is that simple.

yes, for the vulnerable that is certainly true.

Over a large sample it does.
The trouble is that the anti-vaxers just leap on the exceptions, and those are the cases that get publicity. "I had the vaccine, got Covid, but wasn't too ill" doesn't make the headlines 😁

Why do you do that? @FrumpleBoat makes sense to me, I’m presuming you’re of average intelligence so why try to undermine someone who’s made themselves perfectly clear?

If we have global difficulties in the future @Notmoog it absolutely won’t be because of the Covid vaccine or ‘big pharma’.
It will be because of the true ‘global-elite-big-billionaires’ who happen to be spouting the same rubbish as you.
Trump would love your mindset and they are looking to recruit people like you as his voters. The arrogant, hard of thinking who don’t want to work collaboratively as a society. Who are so overly focussed on their own individualism that they cannot see sense. Except these big billionaires do see the sense. Recruiting people like you gives them more power, more money and no - they don’t care about the weak or vulnerable. They are quite happy to see them eliminated. They don’t want their money to be spent on them.
He is adding to his team of billionaires.
With that amount of money, he can pay to have the law his way.
So if we are heading for global disaster, no it won’t be because of the vaccine. It will be because of the mindset you are supporting.

You are very focussed on the vulnerable, those in the high risk categories. However, what I've seen with Covid (more than any other similar flu-like illness) is that it can severely affect the young and healthy, and have lasting consequences.
My friend was a very slim, fit and healthy 44 year old, never had illnesses. I was always envious of her immune system. However, she's now been in a wheelchair for over two years with long Covid. She said if she washes her hair in the morning, she's wiped out for the rest of the day. She had a senior position in the civil service, managing a team of 20. She lost her job because she's far too weak to work.
Another healthy friend in her 40s, also ended up bedridden with long Covid. She was so ill she couldn't even hold a book or her phone. Her husband tried to read to her but just listening gave her headaches. She got it in April 2020 and is only just starting to improve now. Neither of them were in high risk groups.
I work at a university and several students (fit and healthy teenagers) have given up their courses because of long Covid. You may say post viral fatigue has always existed but I've never seem so many healthy young people debilitated as I have with long Covid.

@SallyWD "You are very focussed on the vulnerable, those in the high risk categories."

aaarrggghhhh. for the 8 billionth ( and final) time: I was responding to someone saying their medic family members had no clue who would react badly to this novel virus.
I said that's very surprising as the vulnerable and at risk people were known basically from day one, certainly by the time it arrived in the UK.
I have made no comments about long covid, or 5G, or Bill Gates or Trump.

This was my earlier comment

It’s was a new unknown virus, no one knew in the initial days how the infection would spread or impact so many people so quickly.

Nothing about the impact on the medically vulnerable although my two friends who died in December 2020 didn’t fall into that category.

I think that’s the thing @Parker231

When I look back at that time it cuts to the core. I had someone very dear to me needing urgent cancer care, yet her hospital was completely inundated with cancer patients. When she did have her operation, the hospital were too stretched to give her adequate pain relief. I could see the hospital staff battling to cope.

I had someone else very dear to me, a child in hospital with a PIMS type reaction and a scarily high temperature over days. She needed hospital care at the height of Covid.

I had two friends in their thirties who were hospitalised.

I knew several people that died, including a police officer who had to work through Covid and left a widow and two children.

Views like @Notmoogs make me absolutely livid.

As with all things medical, you have to weigh up the benefits against the risks. As you are eligible for the vaccine, presumably medical professionals think it is worth the risk. Random advice on the internet will not be more informed than that.

It is entirely up to you if you want to get it or not. I would base my decision on whatever risk factor made me eligible and how ill I felt the last few times I had covid.

I’m sorry your friends also suffered during the pandemic.

DH, a doctor working on a Covid ward was badly affected by what happened. He returned to general practice as a GP but we made the decision to leave the UK and move to Canada. DH is French Canadian but has been in the UK for over 30 years working for the NHS. Although he worked briefly in Canada, a couple of years ago we both decided to take early retirement (we are mid 50’s). Life is much better now although we are living along way from our DT’s who live a work in Amsterdam and Brussels

@Parker231 All I can say is a huge thank you - to your DH. And others like him.

My Mum was saved by a very clever surgeon. The fact that she is still here this Xmas is testament to people like your DH.
Her grandchildren are enriched by her presence, and the mindset that her existence is disposable appalls me.

Your DH was right and hope he never doubts that.

I've had no vaccinations at all, have had Covid twice, both times no worse than a bad cold and I haven't had it now in 2.5 years

You’ve been very lucky. Not a risk I was prepared to take.