August 2, 2021 - 11:36am
In Britain, vaccine uptake overall is now around 88%, and around 68% in adults under 30. Where it’s widely available but often refused because of vaccine hesitancy – notably in the US – uptake is currently more like 48%.
Just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, a vaccination isn’t really something you can compromise on: you’re either jabbed or you’re not. And like pregnancy, it also has an inescapably social dimension: having kids affects others as well as oneself, and so does declining a medical intervention that reduces the risk of severe illness.
As such, vaccination discourse sits as uneasily as fertility discourse within cultures that especially prize individualism. Predictably, then, the discourse over incentivising vax stragglers has grown louder and stranger.
Like the rollout, vaccine incentives also reflect local conditions. In Romania, getting jabbed gets you a barbecued sausage sandwich; in Moscow you could win a car; in Washington State getting jabbed will score you a free cannabis joint, and the Biden administration is reportedly in talks with McDonalds about discounts for the jabbed. In the Philippines, districts are raffling cows, sacks of rice, new motorcycles and even a house, and in the UK, incentives on offer include discounted taxi rides and pizza, plus – from the end of September – the freedom to go clubbing. In France, citizens are being threatened with effective exclusion from normal life if they demur, triggering a widespread bout of the French national pastime, public rioting.
Meanwhile, the usual voices are lining up to condemn the unvaccinated as idiots and antisocial conspiracy theorists. And to be fair, many of the voices protesting this emerging new politics sound (to put it politely) eccentric. A London protest against vaccine passports triggered a police investigation after one speaker compared medical staff to Nazi war criminals.
Individualism runs deep in the West. Conversely, though, hard pandemic-era lessons on the social coordination (and sometimes authoritarian interventions) that most effectively manage infections have made a practical case for tempering the desire for freedom with a willingness to think socially too.
But even as pandemic politics drives a growing acceptance of more collectivist public health politics, we should reflect on the form taken by the new collective thinking: bodily interventions combined with big data. Where, in that outline, is the human scale, or the scope for individual context and flexibility? I think this is, however inchoately, the question being asked by the rag-tag coalition of protesters.
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SubscribeHow disappointing. Most vaccine hesitant people are not automatically fringe or eccentric – even though they are accused of being anything from murderous to mad. Surely the sheer numbers of the vaccine hesitant must tell you this, yet increasingly many of the angry vaccinated are howling things like lack of caring for fellow human beings, proposing prosecution and the like.
I am very suspicious about the covid vaccines. They are already not delivering what they promised. The trials were held with a small sample of the population (sick, aged etc were not included as far as I know). They have no long term safety records and received emergency authorisation on the basis that there are no therapeutics available. There is a safe therapeutic (and prophylaxis) available, but that fact simply cannot be endorsed. There is far too much money involved.
We have witnessed governments, scientists, large organisations, corporate media, big businesses (most with conflicts of interests) merge in a concerted effort to discredit anything to do with the therapeutic.
I have never been a conspiracy theorist, but as this pandemic has taught there are many former ‘conspiracies’ that have already come true. I am remaining watchful.
I have taken the vaccine because I am older and want to travel – I weighed up the risks and rewards and figured the risk was worth it. If I was younger I would not dream of taking it right now and would be extremely angry if I were forced.
Just this morning I saw a young pregnant woman boasting on FB that she had taken the jab. What has the world come to?
“Just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, a vaccination isn’t really something you can compromise on: you’re either jabbed or you’re not.”
11 Million abortions in the West in the last few decades say you are wrong about being a little bit pregnant, and as far as you are ‘Jabbed or Not Jabbed’ – What does that even mea? J&J vaccine is made from cloned aborted fetus cells, someone was a little pregnant for you to get the vaccine, and some baby is not now in school, but an industrial product making billions for the ‘Covid Medical Industrial Complex’.
HOW ABOUT PEOPLE WHO HAD COVID???? And so have a much broader spectrum immunity? Are they to be dismissed as the ‘UNJABBED?
So how about Ivermectin? How about if you use that 86% successful prophylaxes, or medicine if you get covid? Being on Ivermectin is better than jabbed as being jabbed with such a tiny targeted vaccine wile the covid was everywhere is a mere guarantee that super strains will be selected for – You double jabbed getting covid (same viral load as the unjabbed get) are merely selecting for vaccine resistance, your vaccine may prove to be a very flawed thing…
So tautologically, I guess you are jabbed, or unjabbed – but other than that what you say is both meaningless and misleading.
I have clearly said that I took the vaccine and why – and that I am a vaccine sceptic and why.
My rant ended up being at the article, sorry. I am unjabbed, and had covid, but refuse the vaccine, so will have to not travel as I will not do what I do not believe in.
I do think everyone adult should get the vaccine unless very against it for some reason.
My main issue of concern is how using the exceedingly narrow targeted mRNA wile the virus is about is it provides an opportunity for the selection of immune vanities – at least natural immunity is broad spectrum, so I feel is much better.
The mRNA just gives protection to one protein it is designed to target, and that can be changed by mutation selected by the mass vaxing. A vax person gets the billion viruses just as the unvaxed does, and as billions get vaxed you get billionsXbillions of viruses exposed to the mRNA, and so can be selected – will be selected, to resist.
This mass use of narrow focus mRNA vax wile the virus is common could be seen as a grand ‘GAIN OF FUNCTION’ experiment.
I mention immune escape in another post…
It has to be a issue of principle?
The AstraZeneca jab is being distributed at cost and so could hardly be described as part of a ‘Covid Medical Industrial Complex’, and you might want to read this before placing your trust in Ivermectin: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns
How was ‘cost’ calculated? And are they going to continue supplying at ‘cost’ until the pandemic is crushed? Has Astra Zeneca no conflicts of interest in respect of its vaccine coming up against a therapeutic? How many people are they supporting at ‘cost’ that they will have to let go if a therapeutic is ‘found’.
By the way, The Guardian is not a reputable source of unbiased opinion and is a lightweight in respect of science, so I’ll skip the link thanks. I’m going to guess that they are quoting one trial and ignoring the multitude of other trials. I’m further going to point out that big pharmaceutical companies are well known for smudging the truth and hiding any negative details of their trials. And we all know the vaccine trials were generally done with a sample of people who are not fully representational 🙂
You guess correctly.
LOL. Hilarious. Just take a look at MRNA and BNTX stocks for the last year. Blackrock and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have absolutely killed it! I think BMG might have sold their moderna shares. I don’t see them on the holders list anymore. Blackrock is still there. They are both still on BioNTech though. You are looking at the birth of a new trillion dollar industry. With the “bad news” the stocks are still going up. Get that arm ready baby!!! Booster shots a coming!! Crap… I’m going to quit arguing and go buy more BNTX stock! I’m following BMG.
This is indeed an interesting article but by no means conclusive. And I, as a lifelong leftie, find it ironic (to put it mildly) that the Guardian thinks that people supporting Ivermectin against the profiteering of big pharma are ‘right wingers’ – one reason I no oonger take the Guardian seriously on anything to do with the pandemic.
Here in the US, trust in government agencies is so low that for many people here, listening to the ‘experts’ feels like taking medical advice from Josef Mengele. When you have scientific and academic institutions telling you that ‘men are women’ and your refusal to believe that this is so makes you ‘right-wing’, you begin to wonder if the experts and government haven’t collectively lost their minds. I’m afraid it’s not so much the message that is causing people to distrust the vaccines, but the messengers themselves.
Such an excellent point. The tribalism in academia deprives our sources of authority of their authoritativeness, just when it is needed for saving lives. Hey, academics, if you want people to believe you, you have to stop saying things like “White Americans have caused Black Americans to have one-tenth the net wealth, which we know because there is just no other possible explanation (that we have not declared ‘taboo’).” You lose credibility with that sort of baseless accusation. Also, I do feel that there is a contradiction in saying, “we know the vaccine is safe and effective” and simultaneously, “we can’t approve it yet, because we don’t know that it is safe and effective.” Make up your minds.
I have to believe that at some level the anti-vaxxers are driven by a desire to resist a government position that is supported by scientists, who have taken positions that are very unpopular with a lot of people, and are actually not supported by evidence.
The fundamental confusion is the habit of referring to it as “a vaccine” i.e. a human medicine. It will only be a human medicine if it is licensed. And it will only be licensed if it survives peer review of a Phase 3 clinical trial of long term safety – the first of which will not be complete for another 2 years. Until then, it can only legitimately be referred to as “a highly experimental, unlicensed, partially tested vaccine candidate with as yet unquantified non-theoretical risk of serious long term side effect”.
Which has the merit of explaining what anti-unlicensed-vaxxers are upset about.
Children have a greater risk from the vaccine than they do from covid – but we say it is worth the risk as it may help protect the eldery. WTF?? When did we put children at risk to potentially, in a tiny way, give an elderly person a tiny better chance of not getting 99.9% survivable covid?
I was originally quite happy to wait and see how the vaccine roll out went, consider how common and how severe the side effects were, and then compare to whatever risk a 68 year old with no co-morbidities was facing from Covid itself. But now with a the bullying and censorship I wonder just what is going on and feel, well, hesitant!
Something very pertinent that I omitted in my previous post. The ‘conspiracy theory’ of vaccine breakthrough/immune escape hastening mutations of the virus is now happening. Is there anyone here involved in this science (with no conflict of interest I hasten to add) who can add to this?
Weinstein says 95% escape likely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZysJvnDCFo
British Dr Campbell, Ivermectin, reduces deaths by 62% and transmission by 86% (Youtube’s most popular covid doctor)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7am9kjMrk
But every where in Bret Weinstein’s videos, hundreds of them, are explanations of how dangerous it is to vaccine wile the virus is widely infecting as it selects for mutations – I very much recomend watching them – and the plus to me is he is also a conspiracy person – as he can find no ther reaason why the studies are so selective, and such a huge range of study is Blocked out totally.
Why? The pushers are admitting it.CNN is even reporting it. They are actually telling the truth this time. LOL. BioNTech and Moderna stocks are going up again. The solution is going to be more jabs. No doubt about it.
https://www.cnn.ph/world/2021/8/2/COVID-19-vaccine-variant-effect.html
The Twitter feed of Dr Robert Malone is excellent for measured, expert views and links to other experts and articles such as Gert Vanden Bossche who has alot to say about vaccinating with a non-sterilising therapy into a pandemic…Trialsite news
I posted Geert Vanden Bossche’s first article in March on my FB page. I took a lot of heat, but I guess I have the last laugh.
A wee thought experiment. Take your mind back to pre-2020. What was the purpose of buy x get y free ? Was it because x was something very good for us? Urgent ? Essential ? Or was it something that the seller was trying to offload with a bribe, the “y”. Usually accompanied by an advertising campaign about “X” done in such a way as to instill the dreaded FOMO in people.
It is blindingly obvious:
The “y” is the fast food,lottery ticket, prize.
The “x” is the vaccine the NEED to offload.
The next puzzle is why the rush? It is getting very intense. One thing seems very clear is that there seems to be a time factor and the stop watch is nearly at the end. So what happens when time runs out? Clearly the vaccine is not about the virus so it is either control or (god forbid) a ticking time bomb of death and dependency. I cannot see it being a 5G control thing because we already have 5G switched on in many cities! (I don’t see any issues so far) As far as dependency is concerned well…Roll up roll up for you booster shot (because jabs 1+2 killed of your natural immunity!) And then they will charge for it! They need as many people as possible dependant on lifelong annual multiple booster shots. But that’s a conspiracy you nutter! Hold on all the pieces of the puzzle are right there. The pieces are :
The vaccine is NOT a vaccine it’s gene therapy, so says the inventor DUH!
The spike protein has been enhanced for transmissibility throughout the body.
The antibodies ,in the vaccinated, become ineffective after 10 weeks according to a 9 month study.
The antibodies in the unvaccinated last for at least 9 months according to the same 9 month study DUH!
The vaccinated have low immunity to the delta (or other) variants.
The unvaccinated have high immunity to variants.
Isreal, UK, Scotland and US (free states) show the delta variant spreading and hospitalisation amongst the unvaccinated
October is coming (the stopwatch).
I hope I am wrong but as more evidence comes out this is looking more and more like a mass dependency program which will no longer be able to con/bribe/coerce people to join after October.
Some facts first: covid vaccines are in their last stage of trials, all people who are vaccinated should be made aware of this and give informed consent to participate in this experiment. It should be made clear to them that there are many unknows on the moment.
So maybe, amongst the antivaxxers (which sounds like they are seen as some sort of group of extremists or something like that), there are a lot of ‘better informed people’ who make a decision for themselves: ok I am happy to be part of this experiment or not.
Note that for those under 75 it is likely that vaccinating or not (apart from seen as a good person by a large part of society) makes no odds to their health and death statistics. Hence the only thing for those vaccinated under 75 they can be sure of is that 1)there is a small chance there is a side effect and that 2) covid vaccine or not makes no odds.
“… Biden administration is reportedly in talks with McDonalds about discounts for the jabbed.” If this really happens, it would be the ultimate proof that we have lost our minds. Fast food is one of the biggest killers in the West yet we want to encourage people to eat more of it? What’s next? Free booze for all?
CDC: COVID-19 only a few mutations away from evading vaccineshttps://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-covid-19-only-a-few-mutations-away-from-evading-vaccines/ar-AAMFgco
In the USA right now… My county health department makes no differentiation between vaccinated and unvaccinated. Viral load with the delta variant was found to be the same in unvaccinated and vaccinated. Most recent data out of UK and Israel is vaccinated are getting just as sick. Real danger of ADE and antigenic sin. Those vaccines are not looking good right now. That being said… there hasn’t been much death. Just a small uptick in UK and Israel. Despite all the panic death rates are slightly below 5 year averages all over Europe and the US. This facts seems to have been lost. Even during the peak of it.. deaths were elderly, in poor health, and many due to the abysmal even criminal level of care given in hospitals. The panic has been the worse than the disease.
Meanwhile, the usual voices are lining up to condemn the unvaccinated as idiots and antisocial conspiracy theorists.
And none of them have ever been right about anything so what’s different this time
“Public rioting”? As opposed to private rioting?
I am double jabbed – and thought I was therefore pretty invincible.
I am currently in isolation – having contracted Covid last weekend. I tested positive after a PCR Test last Monday (having registered as negative on 2 Lateral Flow Tests on Sunday & Monday). Through last week my symptoms were quite mild, a bit of a flu-ey cold – with one horrible night of full fever sweats and shivers. I now feel pretty much mended.
I spent the previous weekend at a festival-style party, with lots of old friends and I know, for certain, that is where I picked up the bug. All party attendees were LFT tested before being allowed to enter. All were clear – however, on Monday night news came through that the wife and child of one party attendee (who themselves had stayed at home) had tested positive and he was now showing symptoms. Over the next couple of days a dozen people were stricken, in varying levels of discomfort.
All I can say for certain after my own experiences, and following those of friends, is that Lateral Flow Tests are worthless. They seem only to accurately give positive readings to those who are already displaying obvious symptoms. Any system that relies on LFTs to give accurate data is doomed.
Of those who attended the party – all were double jabbed, bar two.
Patient Zero, who appears to have been the cause of the outbreak, was not jabbed.
But, the interesting thing is that, of those of us who succumbed having been double jabbed, none of us have passed it on to our families – despite having spent a week in isolation with them.
The two unjabbed have infected other people – which just goes to show that although the jabs don’t stop one getting infected they do seem to stop one being infectious.
That should be the Govt message, refusing a vaccine is not a “principled stand” it is just ill-mannered and selfish. You get vaccinated not for yourself but for others.
My understanding is that the two who’ve been unjabbed have done so out of some hippy-ish, conspiratorial belief that they didn’t want something mandated by Govt.
All well and good to take that stance if you are the only one taking a risk from it. But that has proven not to be the case – their stance has had implications for those around them. Both of the unjabbed are good friends of mine – one infected a lot of his friends and the other has gone home and now passed the bug onto his kids.
Despite that, it is a very difficult subject to broach without recriminations. The one person who dared make the case – not even that forcefully – that vaccine refusal was selfish, has had a lot of push-back. It turns out that people who don’t like being told what to do by Govt, don’t like to be told what to do even by close friends!”
Vaccinated people have been shown to pass on Covid, This is widely disseminated even in corporate media. Did you read my post as to why I am a vaccine sceptic? Millions of people know the same thing.
No. They do not know it – They believe it. Nothing more.
It always seems to come as a surprise to the zealot, but believing something to be true, however vehemently, does not actually add a single jot to its veracity.
Same for your belief in vaccines I am afraid Alexander.. The science is bogged with opinions and selecting of data and material. Everybody is human and wants to believe in something, even scientists and other opinion makers: it is far from black and white
Lesley, can you share a link to your post? Where can I follow you?
“have been shown to pass on Covid” – This is a claim based on detecting a high viral load in nasal PCR measures with actual unknown infectivity (no culture data reported). I’ve been searching for evidence that post vaccination re-infected are capable of passing on the infection to others. The vaccine prepared immunity system should quickly dispatch the infectious molecules. You may feel ill during the process of the immune system doing it’s job.
The most recent stats of transmission from vaccinated people that I have seen is in the leaked CDC slides… you can access this on Dr John Campbell’s YouTube of 2 days ago. Mr Conservative Pro Vaccine.
For me, the key feature of the vaccines is that they are highly effective at preventing severe covid disease.
Do you know if any of the infected people from the party you attended became seriously ill with covid? Did they suffer more than aches, headache, sweats?
Personally, I don’t expect the vaccine to protect me from any chance of infection. In fact, exposing the immune system to the whole virus might stimulate a broader and more effective antibody response. I do expect to be largely protected from severe illness. Without that effect the vaccines are worthless.
The two unvaccinated sufferers have done pretty badly. They are both fit and healthy people, in their v early fifties, but have had a rotten week of feeling very unwell. They appear to be on the mend but are still pretty uncomfortable.
The vaccinated have suffered far mildr symptoms, but more importantly they have not passed on the bug – as opposed to the unvaccinated who have infected those they’ve been in close contact with.
As previously noted, the more important effect of the vaccine appears to be the reduction of transmissability.
Thus taking the vaccine is more for other people than for oneself.
“The vaccinated have suffered far mildr symptoms, but more importantly they have not passed on the bug”
How can you possibly know this? In certain countries such as Israel where vaccine uptake is high there have been thousands of infections in the double jabbed. Do you honestly believe that such infections are driven only by the unjabbed? If so you are out of step with the conclusions of many eminent doctors and scientists, although in line with what the pharmaceutical companies making billions out of this would want you to believe. So ineffective are the vaccines that they are already planning the roll out of boosters.
Read the literature – for every kook that wants to believe that vaccines are some sort of conspiratorial hoax, or some equally fatuous nonsense, there are hundreds more who are satisfied the vaccines greatly reduce transmissability.
I initially supported the right of people to choose not to have the vaccine, because i felt it was up to the individual to make the call for themselves. But it lower vaccine uptake affects the whole of society then that argument stops being a libertarian one and becomes a matter of selfishness.
For the common good, people should be vaccinated.
I would never force it on anyone, but i think it perfectly proper that those who’ve elected not to be vaccinated should not be allowed to put others at risk in enclosed areas – so no getting on aeroplanes, no going to restaurants or cinemas.
Although I believe in individual liberty, I’ve come around to the vaccine passport idea. Because your right to individual liberty stops when that liberty impacts someone else. Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of someone else’s nose.
The most recent stats of transmission from vaccinated people that I have seen is in the leaked CDC slides… you can access this on Dr John Campbell’s YouTube of 2 days ago. Mr Conservative Pro Vaccine.
Read the literature – for every kook that wants to believe that vaccines are some sort of conspiratorial hoax, or some equally fatuous nonsense, there are hundreds more who are satisfied the vaccines greatly reduce transmissability.
I initially supported the right of people to choose not to have the vaccine, because i felt it was up to the individual to make the call for themselves. But it lower vaccine uptake affects the whole of society then that argument stops being a libertarian one and becomes a matter of pig-headed selfishness.
For the common good, people should be vaccinated.
I would never force it on anyone, but i think it perfectly proper that those who’ve elected not to be vaccinated should not be allowed to put others at risk in enclosed areas – so no getting on aeroplanes, no going to restaurants or cinemas.
Although I believe in individual liberty, I’ve come around to the vaccine passport idea. Because your right to individual liberty stops when that liberty impacts someone else. Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of someone else’s nose.
You cite the Israeli example, yet the studies done in Israel point most highly to the reduction in transmissability by up to 60%.
Initial report of decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load after inoculation with the BNT162b2 vaccine | Nature Medicine
Thanks for that reference. It also is based on PCR only to estimate viral loading and may not be applicable for the Delta variant. I’m awaiting a proper culture test to confirm the PCR cycle linkage.
indeed, vaccinated people seem to pass on the virus possibly as much as non vaccinated. It may even be so that there exist no non-ill covid spreaders but there exist non-ill vaccinated covid spreaders. However much you turn this around : covid vaccinations are an experiment. I hope it turns out to be a good experiment but I do not hold my breath for now.
I’m not claiming this explains all of the anti-vaxx movement, but not getting vaccinated is similar to tatoos, piercings, keeping a vicious dog and body building, in that it gives people some control over their lives. It also illustrates the general lack of understanding of both epidemics and risk.
What a truly bizarre comparison.
You make some reasonable points. Downvotes unsurprising.
Does ‘individual subjectivity’ imply individual responsibility? Hospital care is very expensive – if you refuse to be vaccinated, then get the disease, are you entitled to hospital care? Because that hospital care probably means someone else, who needed the care for cancer treatment or some other operation, won’t get it.
why are hospitals treating the obese? they should have eaten better.
why are hospitals treating smokers? they should have never smoked.
Why are hospitals treating car accidents? they should have driven more carefully.
why dont hospitals only treat correct thinking healthy people?
None of your examples were offered a simple medical transaction, a vaccination, to avoid the harm that might befall them. In refusing the vaccination offered to you, should you not accept responsibility for dealing with the quite likely outcome?
But the vaccination does not confer prevention of disease or prevent death or transmission. It just promises to make it a little bit better. Obesity and smoking are proven to be extremely deleterious to your health.
What is your evidence for your assertions? It’s a sight more than a little bit better. Vaccines significantly reduce transmission, serious illness, hospitalisation and death in all but the most vulnerable.
Stats from Israel for one – who are one of the most vaccinated countries on earth support my assertion. This is old news.
Unfortunately the statement that serious illness, hospitalization and death are reduced for the vaccinated are now being challenged in stats coming out in respect of age groups. They are reduced in older people 64+, slightly higher in middle aged vaccinated groups, but not younger people. Younger people are better off not having the vaccination. I am following this story.
Do you mean the rise in cases in Israel which, as I understand it, have also followed relaxing restrictions? Looked at their hospitalisation, severe cases and death rates and, relative to case numbers and population, looks ok.
Your second point: most deaths are in the older age group to which you refer. You would therefore expect to find that you have far fewer deaths in that age group and that will drive down overall numbers.
Have you established that any fluctuations in other groups apart from the oldest show a statistical significance that indicates it’s unlikely to chance? Can you actually provide any numbers here?
Looks like the very low numbers of UK hospital cases are ca. 50% post hospital admission for a positive (accurate) test. This will then comprise many of the low numbers of people who die within 28 days of a test, itself a fairly broad definition of a COVID ‘death’.
The UK has recently experienced a peak of 50 to 60,000 daily positive tests, has relaxed many restrictions during that time and yet has seen a dramatic drop in the number of hospital admissions, ICU cases and post positive test deaths compared to previous peaks. If not vaccine effectiveness, what is your explanation for these statistics? Who is challenging them and what are their counter arguments?
So many down ticks. Strong is the tin foil hat here today.
Perhaps those you refer to as ‘tin foil hat’ (such a silly thing to say) are simply better informed.
I’ll admit that it was somewhat flippant.
However, what I don’t see is an explanation for assertions that vaccines are ineffective at reducing transmission and the need for hospital/ICU treatment, especially rates of admission after a positive test, rather than a mandatory test following admission showing positive.
You can find reasonably granular information, for example on infection rates by age, at the ONS website. From this, you can construct arguments for or against the efficacy of the vaccination programme.
Granted, correlation is not proof of causation, but what you then do is look for factors that may explain the observed results. Are death rates low because the most vulnerable have already succumbed or because people who would have been unable to fight off an infection are now able to mount an immune response if infected? Is the metric for recoding a death fit for purpose? Are higher rates in school age children due to their being unvaccinated or the return to class (the answer may, of course, be both)? Are rises in rates in the over 50s due to relaxing restrictions on social activity or a sign of vaccines being ineffective?
Even that somewhat even handed comment earned a negative. Interesting.
Not my day, is it? ;0)
Interesting indeed. A suggestion that looking at published data, proposing hypotheses and drawing conclusions might be a discussion point gets no response, save for a glib suggestion that I’m uninformed. Cue the next downvote.
Conversely, why do I need to be coerced and bribed into being vaccinated when I’ve already had covid and therefore have natural immunity? Estimates of my chances of reinfection hover around 1%, so surely that’s a waste of a dose that could have been given to someone more vulnerable?
Because, as Mary says above, you are either ‘Jabbed, or Unjabbed’, which basically means to not be a granny killer, and to be part of civilization, you must get jabbed.
PLEASE do not look for reason in the Covid Responce, there is none, so get your jab, because, well, you are unjabbed.
“Hospital care is very expensive”
If you refuse to work hard, maybe get that second job, and pay your share of Medical costs, Are you entitled to Medical care?
“Hospital care is very expensive”
Not in the UK, it ain’t.
(By which I mean, it is free at the point of provision for pretty much all-comers).
That is not quite how hospitals work. People being treated for cancer and undergoing operation will do so in specialised facilities and wards. Covid19 treatments would in no way interfere with that and would indeed be separate treatment facilities altogether. The only serious conflict is if lockdowns for Covid continue because this has limited what surgeries are done and when, having dramatic impacts on treatment.
So many points: to Sanford, yes you are entitled to medical care because you are part of the community – in civilised, wealthy countries it is part of the social contract, also, compassion would see you get it. To D Ward, hospital care is very expensive – look at how much tax payers’ money is spent on each hospital. And it is rationed, if you unnecessarily are taking up a place in hospital you have unnecessarily bumped someone else further down the queue. To Heidi, it isn’t just lockdowns, it is how many people turn up at hospitals needing to be admitted – they displace other people who need treatment in hospitals.
I still think it is an interesting moral question: if you could have easily prevented yourself needing hospital treatment (health authorities say that the vaccine reduces the severity of the symptoms), but then get COVID and need hospital treatment, thereby using scarce resources and displacing other patients, are you not morally at fault? I think you are entitled to treatment, but there is something morally not quite right (selfishness?) that you need to accept responsibility for.