The sooner enough people are vaccinated, the sooner the spread will slow to a trickle. Even though the vaccinated can spread COVID, the REDUCTION in the time that you are infectious will yield the results we require. This is called herd immunity. We’ve got that going for smallpox (similar vaccine efficacy to the COVID vaccines), polio (similar vaccine efficacy to the COVID vaccines), MMR (similar to lower vaccine efficacy to the COVID vaccines). As vaccines go, the COVID vaccines are incredibly effective, so long as people actually take the fucking thing.
But rest assured, a vaccine mandate and forced vaccinations are not the same thing. Forced vaccination is where a health care worker and a policeman team up, hold you down, and inject you against your will. That’s also known as assault.
A vaccine mandate means you’ve got the right to refuse the vaccine, but that you will have to give up some privileges in due course - much like smokers aren’t allowed to smoke in the Spar anymore, since it affect everyone around them, so unvaccinated people will have to make certain concessions.
But I’m also gatvol. My wife is being asked by other health care professionals if she supports the proposed mandate, or if we should take the vaccine. She’s not the one to answer those question. Nor are we. The vaccine mandate should be figured out by healthcare policy makers and lawyers. @jaydogg86, you should be posing these questions to epidemiologists - y’know, the folks that are experts - not a gaming forum.
But guess what, we already what their answers are…
I think @GregRedd and @Avatar pretty much answered your questions, but not in a manner you were hoping to hear. I think that’s the problem that we’re sitting with in general - and I’m not talking specifically about COVID vaccines - the fact that people are looking for answers that substantiate their opinion. Not the correct answer, not even the wrong one. Just a suitable one. One that’s (good) music to their ears.
Unfortunately that’s not how life works. I had a similar discussion with one of my devs this morning, where he was afraid to take the vaccine because his ex-step-mom’s nephew got bald spots on his head after said spots started turning colouring his hair red, also while his gums started receding. All within 1 week of taking the vaccine. Asking him whether he witnessed it himself yielded an expected answer of “no, but I heard about it”. With trepidation he went to get the vaccine this afternoon and - shock, horror - came back perfectly fine afterwards. I’m waiting to see his gums recede and spots on his hair turn red within the next week, but I’m afraid I will be sorely disappointed.
Before I begin, I feel I need to prefix this by saying I have received my 2nd dose. I am not anti VACCINES. Sadly I am doubtful about this though, due to the fact they literally changed the definition of the word vaccine to accommodate this. This is not in my mind a proper vaccine.
Polio vaccine = vaccine. Smallpox vaccine = vaccine. I got that injection when i was tiny. i was immune to polio. Same with smallpox.
covid vaccine = just expired condom. probably gonna be ok, but sorry, there isn’t a guarantee.
What we are receiving are booster shots, the equivalent of a flu shot or a high dose of vitamin C to fight off a potential cold. It does not mean you won’t catch it…it does not mean you won’t still spread it. I really wish people would understand that a little better…I don’t understand the mental effort in making people take something that is taking what are already small statistical numbers (yes i realise it becomes millions when we regard that there are billions on the planet…But i’m Dwhite Shcrute…hate me all you want. if i get sick and die from this i’ll take it on the chin, i wont get angry as if its someone else’s fault to have given it to me) and telling me that taking this shot means i’ll have small statistical numbers in getting it or being hurt from it.
And what are the base odds about getting the disease and not needing hospitalization? I’m pretty sure for the last 18 months it was about 95% of people had nothing happen? and we had 3% deaths of the people confirmed to have caught the disease (according to worldometer).
Vaccine mandate is a scary fucking thing. Whats next, putting gold stars on the shoulders of people who are unvaccinated? Lets go one better, lets restrict their movements…lets put them all in camps…Gee that sounds familiar?
If you are vaccinated, what the fuck do you care if someone isn’t. You’re protected. except… You’re both still spreading it if you get it, and you aren’t not getting it if you are exposed. If you have loved ones, and you’re worried about them and they are concerned about this, then they should get vaccinated.
Ahh… so you’re not a sheep. just someone who believes that a legitimate, proven, cheap drug that has been administered to literally billions of people for over decades, was provably falsely reported on by the largest media on the plane (CNN) to be like exclusively horse dewormer and taken by people, as if they ran to a vet and got it there.
Yip thats a big problem that we are discovering about the human race. Everything is subjective. Look at what happened when there was that rumour about the blood clots in the one vaccine that was then temporarily pulled, despite the percentage of people getting the clots that had taken the vaccine was lower than the natural amount of people that would just GET blood clots.
I’ve taken the vaccine. But I don’t for one second believe that there aren’t people out there taking advantage and squeezing every bit of power and control they can from this situation.
That shit pisses me off greatly. All the “but i heard X happened when this Y person took/didnt take it”. Really? was it clinically documented? was it peer reviewed? Then i’ll listen. Show me the stats, not tell me your uncle got scurvy and it cured his blindness, therefore i need to do/not do something.
I can definitely tell this is not likely to be a popular comment on this thread, but i’m sharing my opinion.
Randy from South park said it best.
“Stanley, listen to me… I have SARS… There’s only a ninety eight percent chance that I will live.”
Come back at me angrily with stories of friends/family/loved ones that have gotten this thing and not beaten it. So do I. That’s a subjective (potentially strawman) argument, and not facts and statistics. I have people in my life that have died from all sorts of things in the past few years. That’s not a way to win your argument by making me feel shit about you having lost someone, therefore i need to do X.
I am sickened by people wanting to force people to take something they don’t want to take.
Be an ass, wish them to get sick and die…thats fine. don’t fucking hold them down and make them do it, thats a quick fast path to fascism.
When this thread started, we were able to have quite an interesting conversation. It was a new thing. It remained civil.
The second time I tried to gauge peoples feelings on where we stood with this pandemic, it got hostile and subjective and guilt-trippy pretty fucking quick.
I apologize if the above reply comes off as heated. I just feel someone has to stand up for the people that feel they are healthy, and not at risk, and don’t wanna be forced to do something.
The cigarette comparison is bullshit. Thats something you voluntarily and optionally do. Just like if you want to shoot a gun, go to a gun range. This is to me more the equivalent of telling the vegetarian at the table to fuckoff out of spur.
Both my wife and i have gotten the vaccine. different ones, too. She got the teacher dose. i got the 2 parter.
We live wiht someone who is healthy, keeps to themself, doesn’t get sick. They have chosen not to get the vaccine because they don’t see the point. it doesn’t make you immune. It doesn’t make you stop spreading it. It has unknown affects (anyone saying otherwise clearly has a fucking time machine, because this shit takes TIME to discover, when it comes to long term effects).
I am standing up for their right to say no thanks, i’ll take my chances.
If you want to be angry, be angry at the people at the bars/gatherings 15cm away from each other, spreading shit. Why do they get a free pass but my buddy who literally sits in in front of his pc when he’s not at work, gets told to go kill himself by people online when they hear he hasnt got the vaccine. His own family is turning against him…for fucking what
Surprise surprise, my prediction at the start of all this has basically come true. Its here to stay, its gonna run its course (repeatedly thanks to breakthrough cases…thanks vaccinated people mutating it? nice conspiracy theory there )
People overreacted to it at the start. Our entire planet shut down. Its arguably WORSE now that it was. different variants, deadlier strains. We slowly have learnt to live with it. Lets continue to do that. Its not going away. Its the new flu.
I honestly don’t see the fuss in the people that want vaccines forcing those that don’t want it. Is it gonna make it go away? no
Is it gonna make me not get covid? no
Is it gonna make me not spread it? no
Its gonna reduce my already small chances of being hospitalized. well done. victory. what a fucking hill to die on
Yesterday I wrote this at MyBroadband:
"Wouldn’t it be better to just stop all the lockdowns and mandates and everything and just let everyone live their lives?
I mean let those who want to vaccinate vaccinate and those who don’t want to, take their chances and then let everything sort itself out."
I thought I was being reasonable. However a fair point was made against what I said:
Hospitals get overrun. Those who refuse to take the vaccine go running to the doctors and the hospitals and then the healthcare system get overrun.
I don’t have time to reply to everything that @Mottamort said now. Have to get ready for work.
Just a quick thing. Even though you can still spread COVID if you are vaccinated, the viral load on the vaccinated persons body is much lower so the virus can’t be transmitted as effectively. They are also contagious for a shorter amount of time and are less likely to catch COVID.
So just a quick one: I honestly don’t see the fuss in the people that want vaccines forcing those that don’t want it. Is it gonna make it go away?
If everyone was vaccinated it would limit the spread of the disease.
Is it gonna make me not get covid?
Compared to people who were not vaccinated, people who were vaccinated were five times less likely to develop COVID-19. They were 10 times less likely to be hospitalized and die from the disease.
(What Is Your Actual Risk of Getting COVID-19 If You're Vaccinated?)
Here is my counter argument to the - take the shot, because hospitals get overrun- argument. Why are the same people then not shouting at the fatties and the unhealthy to get healthy. the stats on this disease are pretty clear cut. I think we can all agree that the vast majority of those that get covid and need to be hospitalized are those with serious comorbidities. where the fuck is the drive to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
nope, we have a magic concoction so you don’t have care about your health, keep buying that saturated fat and high glucose sugar drinks, dont worry about your heart collapsing.
I’m not saying that’s the only thing to do or the best solution (again… i was a good boy and took my medicine, i’m playing devils advocate here)…I’m just wondering why there is this deafening silence around “maybe get generally healthier and the hospitals also won’t get overrun”.
Because making lifestyle changes takes years to decades to have the desired reduction in risk. They have been advocating it for decades, though, not just for COVID. Heart disease is the second highest natural cause of death in most of the western world IIRC, so the battle has been raging.
But in the context of COVID, you can either attack the comorbidity, which still leaves risk of other comorbidities or the loss of life in people with no comorbidities, or you can attack the root cause of the problem - COVID.
Like @Solitude, I’m about to step into a meeting, so I can’t now, but I will give a thorough reply to your longer posts as well.
Meeting got cancelled, so I’ll try and write something thoughtful now!
Set up tents outside. If you’re unvaccinated without a “doctor’s note” and come to a hospital for covid treatment, put them in the tent to die.
I’ve said it before, we’ve gotten to good at keeping individuals alive as a species, it doesn’t give natural ecosystems a chance to balance itself out.
Losing loved ones sucks ass. We want to do everything we can to keep them alive. Let’s just not be so self-entitled about it.
I mean, if the WEF has their way, we’ll all be getting our groceries delivered to us by drone by 2030 anyways, so why the hell do we need a vaccine mandate?
I took my 2 jabs. I doubt I’ll be getting any more.
Writing this between meetings and travel, so apologies for spelling and not linking URL’s nicely.
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but someone lied to you about the definition of the word vaccine. The Smallpox vaccine has a 5% chance of not working on the administered patient, just like the COVID vaccines. All vaccines merely reduce the effect of a virus - it still has to get into your body for the vaccine to help fight it off, and that fighting will still give an immune response, ie. symptoms, which shows up as a reduced infection.
You can call it whatever you like, that doesn’t affect the efficacy, nor the fact that it is, in fact, a vaccine. A highly effective one, at that.
Comparable to the Polio and Smallpox vaccines, the most successful vaccines in history. Waaaaaaay better than the flu vaccine (which is a vaccine, not a booster).
I mean, Chickenpox is a brilliant example of having 85% efficacy, with breakthrough cases happening with milder symptoms and still being infections… Just like COVID.
“Small” chance of being hurt from it, but great chance of getting it if you’re not vaccinated. That’s the major difference between COVID and diseases with similar mortality rates (List of human disease case fatality rates - Wikipedia) - it’s hella infectious, y’all. Btw, that small chance of dying isn’t that far off from Spanish Flu and Smallpox. So yeah, you take that “small” chance.
And to reiterate, 3% is a really, really fucking high number in a highly infectious disease.
Hey, stop the clock, everyone. Post 1825 is our number.
Because I want to help reduce the disease prevalance to background noise levels. You know how it’s major news when there’s an Ebola outbreak, because it’s a rarity? That’s why I want others to be vaccinated.
Because I want people to have a realistic chance at getting the healthcare they deserve without have to suffer with an overrun healthcare system.
Because I don’t want the people that did vaccinate to be subjected to the suffering of a breakthrough infection.
Because I want society to return to something approaching that we had pre-COVID.
And finally, the selfish one, because I want my wife’s wellbeing and mental health to be protected. Our frontline workers are suffering, and most of us have no idea what it’s like in those COVID wards.
Your own image says it. Ivermectin has little to no effect on viruses. It doesn’t work for COVID. Because it was developed for parasites. It doesn’t work for COVID. Whether CNN reported on it or not is irrelevant. It doesn’t work for COVID. Paracetamol is also legitimate, proven, and cheap, but since It doesn’t work for COVID, no one is pushing its use. It really doesn’t work for COVID.
BTW, pretty much every single piece of research that had anything good to say about using Ivermectin for COVID (which doesn’t work) has been shown to be fraudulent.
I’m in the same boat - it’s really easy to read something on a forum and apply your own emotions to what you’re reading, and something may come across as hostile (to steal your word) or heated. I want to emphasise here that I’m just really passionate about this. It will come across as aggressive sometime, but I want to assure you (and everyone else reading) that I’ll happily carry on discussing all of this, playing the ball, not the man, and even when I sound like a jackass, I love all of you. Yes, even you, @oltman .
Society needs that. These are important question that need to be answered! I think the frustrations come in with the sheer volume of noise hiding the signal of truth… Thanks, Facebook!
I disagree, the smoking comparison is perfect. It’s a choice you make, just like the vaccine is a choice (even under a mandate). It come with certain restrictions, because your choice directly affects the health and wellbeing of those around you. Remember, there’s a difference between forced vaccination and a vaccine mandate.
Vegetarianism, btw, isn’t always a choice. And wtf is a vegetarian doing at the Spur?!
It doesn’t make you immune, but gets you damned close. It doesn’t stop you spreading it, but gets you damned close.
No vaccine in the history of medicine has ever shown up with a long term effect more than 10 weeks after administering it… We’re 12 months in… how much TIME do you want? BTW, logically, the side effect of any medicine that is administered to you is REDUCED over time. It’s called pharmacokinetics. So what long term effects are you hoping for?
I mean… I am angry at them. They don’t get a free pass. But why does your buddy get a free pass and those people supposedly don’t? But I don’t particularly want to get into the anecdotal stuff, like you said earlier, especially since there are legitimate reasons not to get the vaccine.
Just like Ebola, Polio, Smallpox, Measles, Chickenpox, HIV/AIDS are all here to stay. It’s being sufficiently managed, though, by reducing risk of infection…
Mutations don’t happen because people are vaccinated, that’s a whole heap of misundersatndings of genetics and mutations in general there.
I think you misunderstood the point I was making. Its a valid drug taken by humans. The word “sheep” was thrown around, and I countered by showing that saying “people taking horse dewormer” is itself making you go baaaa and spouting what they want you to think. I’m not saying this is a miracle covid drug, not in any capacity. But it WAS prescribed to people BY doctors. I am completely happy that there are people willing to test and be lab rats and try find things that work/don’t work. I’d like to read more about what you refer to as fraudulent research, because from what I read there were promising studies, which is why doctors were recommending it…almost like a - well theres no HARM, take it at your own risk- type of deal. Again, I wont tell people to take it, but i’m not going to lie and call it something it clearly isn’t (at least exclusively. yes it iS used to deworm livestock). So thanks for the link, will give it a good read.
I’m glad someone noticed my godwins law, i did it twice actually (referring to fascism…maybe more subtle that one)
very good points
Oh I know, it was a joke to try make the entire rant less serious. its possible you know that too, just making sure.
I definitely did - I’ve been having too many fight IRL with people that are suuuuuuuper pro Ivermectin, so I tend to read anything related to it as a plight to “legalize” it. Which is, as you pointed out, silly. It just goes to show that we should always keep these types of threads civilized, since misunderstanding can so easily creep in!
The great facts about Ivermectin is that it really is a miracle drug, just not for COVID. It’s brilliant at treating river blindness, which is a horrible, debilitating disease causing (you guessed it!) permanent irreversible blindness. It certainly deserved the Nobel Prize it received. If only it did work for COVID, everything would’ve been so much simpler!
It really is a fascinating read, if you’re remotely into those sort of topics. The author is worth a follow on twitter as well, @gidmk.
I did notice the second one, I figured spotlighting one was enough
See, that’s my own shortcoming. In any remotely serious conversation, you need to unscrew the joke from its socket and slap me through the face with it, else it’s whoosh right over my head
I was thinking something similar to this from the beginning actually, but kept my thoughts to myself to not be too insensitive seeing that people had lost loved ones to the virus. However, now there are lots of vaccines available and a pill for treating covid is also close to going to market.
As for the hospitals being overrun, I would be in favour of a requirement of having either a vaccine passport or exemption certificate (only to be issued for medical reasons) for allowing someone access to a hospital for Covid. I support people’s right to choose whether to get vaxxed or not, but I also support healhcare workers’ right to choose to protect the system from being overrun by people who chose not to.
What follows is an adapted copy and paste - that’s really all the effort I can muster for this stuff anymore.
Besides, @Avatar has answered all of the questions. With the data, statistics and informed opinion that you asked for. And with a lot more courtesy than I probably would have used.
Before that though, Godwin’s Law or not, I would like to say that I personally find comparisons of our current situation to that endured by the victims of Nazism to be disgustingly inappropriate, insensitive, and illogical.
I use the horse-dewormer in the same hyperbolic way I assume you use the “what next, yellow stars and fascism?” argument. But in case you weren’t using it as hyperbole…
There is nothing that is happening now that is in any way analogous to the deaths of six million Jews and five million other Gypsies, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, blacks, physically and mentally disabled, political opponents, dissenting clergy, resistance fighters, prisoners of war, and artists who were slaughtered by the Nazi Regime. Nothing.
If anything, the ferocity and self-entitled demanding of “my rights are more important than yours” that much of the anti-vax community uses to state their points of view are more akin to fascist behaviour than what anyone else is exhibiting.
I am fully vaccinated and no, I don’t know what’s in it, neither this vaccine, the ones I had as a child, nor in the Big Mac, or hot dogs, or other treatments…whether it’s for cancer, AIDS, the one for polyarthritis, or vaccines for infants or children.
I also don’t know what’s in Ibuprofen, Paracetamol, or other meds. I just know it takes care of my aches and pains.
I don’t know what’s in the ink for tattoos, vaping, Botox and fillers, or every ingredient in my soap or shampoo or even deodorants.
I don’t know the long term effect of mobile phone use or whether or not that restaurant I just ate at REALLY used clean food and washed their hands.
In short, there is a lot of things I don’t know and never will…
As a child and as an adult I’ve been vaccinated for mumps, measles, polio, chickenpox, and quite a few others; my parents and I trusted the science and never had to suffer through or transmit any of the said diseases. Except chickenpox. That fucker will get you no matter what.
I’m vaccinated, not to please the government but:
To not die from Covid-19.
To not clutter a hospital bed if I do get sick.
To significantly reduce the chance of me spreading high viral load infections to my diabetic wife or chemotherapy immune compromised mother-in-law.
Because I give a damn about my students, the people I interact with in general, and frontline people especially - and not just the healthcare workers. The petrol station attendant, the supermarket cashier, the front desk receptionist, the airline cabin steward.
To work and travel in the hospitality and tourism and restaurant industries again without all the stupid restrictions.
To re-employ the three people we’ve had to retrench because all our business has disappeared.
To see and hug my family and friends who live overseas again.
For Covid-19 to be relegated to nothing more than a “remember when” memory.
Obviously, none of this is going to make the slightest difference to your or anyone else’s opinion. I suppose the converse is true too.
I trust the science, the real doctors, the epidemiologists. I trust the vaccines and I am absolutely convinced that the sooner the majority of people are vaccinated the sooner we’d be able to get shit back to normal. If that makes me a sheep… fucking baa mate, baa, baa, baa!!
Can’t find the article right now but apparently the president’s urging for people to get vaccinated has helped. Over 100 000 received their first jabs in a 24 hour period
As I said, a bit of an adapted copy and paste, but covers my sentiments well. I’m glad your missus approves - she, and all her colleagues - have my respect, admiration, and appreciation. They’re the true heroes in all of this.
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