And that's kind of the point I'm making, people say it's my choice and like i said i respect that however how can someone who's made that choice know that they’re not going to pass it onto someone with a compromised immune system?
It's not like people on immunosuppressant drugs go around with a sign around their neck or that we should tell them they need to isolate themselves until their immune system recovers whenever that maybe.
And in an ideal world that would be great - but for example if I crack open a bag of peanuts on a train or in a public place and someone has an allergic reaction - how was i supposed to know? People can't walk on eggshells or deny their lives for others all the time. Now don't get me wrong, if I knew someone was allergic, I'd not kick up a fuss - i.e. when the trolley dolleys on a plane say "we won't be serving nuts because of allergies" - I'm not one of those entitled people that would moan about it. The thought doesn't even enter my mind about the inconvenience, i just accept the fact that someone could potentially die if i eat this food.
unfortunately as callous as it sounds, the world cannot stop for everyone that feels blighted by it or that has been dealt a rough hand. If we lived in a society that was less rigid, and less capitalistic and materialistic i think it would be a lot different.
I think despite the conversation we're largely in agreement - people in general are good people, but because there's so many of us, it skews what "good" means and how it's viewed.
I mean a lot of articles agree with the majority in the thread but as often with caveats.
Here this article (
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10477745/) states:
- Prioritising vaccination based on age groups with high daily person-to-person interactions can lead to significant reductions in total fatalities (up to 40%) when daily rollout rates are fast and children are eligible for vaccination. this ties in with what @Unseul was mentioning earlier
- If rollout rates are slower and overall vaccination coverage is high, prioritising the vaccination of the elderly is the most effective strategy, resulting in up to 10% fewer fatalities.
- When children are not eligible for vaccination, the differences between priority strategies become smaller.
- The impact of behavioural parameters, such as self-protection levels, is critical in determining the optimal vaccine prioritisation strategy.
Caveats:
- The model is based on several assumptions and simplifications, and the results may vary depending on the specific parameters used.
- The study focuses on a hypothetical emerging infectious disease similar to COVID-19, and the findings may not be directly applicable to other diseases.
- The study does not consider the potential impact of new variants or the waning of vaccine immunity over time.
then you have this article:
Vaccination policies have shifted dramatically during COVID-19 with the rapid emergence of population-wide vaccine mandates, domestic vaccine passports and differential restrictions based on vaccination status. While these policies have prompted ethical, scientific, practical, legal and...
gh.bmj.com
They conclude that COVID vaccine mandates and passports have had unintended negative consequences. These include a decrease in public trust, vaccine confidence, and social well-being. They suggest that these policies should be re-evaluated and that a more sustainable approach to increasing vaccination rates may be through public consultation and trust-based strategies.
Caveats to this conclusion are that they did not provide a comprehensive overview of the arguments for and against COVID vaccine mandates and passports. Additionally, the authors did not fully examine the contribution of these policies to COVID-19 morbidity and mortality reduction.
The figures around the deaths are still overwhelmingly in the elderly:
www.gov.uk
Age, sex, demographic characteristics such as pre-existing conditions, of coronavirus cases of patients infected with COVID-19 and deaths, as observed in studies on the virus outbreak originating from Wuhan, China
www.worldometers.info
this shows much of the same and comorbidities still factor hugely, also interestingly seems to show very low number of deaths "in spite of comorbidities or age" - meaning that covid still kills healthy people, just a very small amount only.
this one is quite interesting:
Limited initial supply of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine raises the question of how to prioritize available doses. Here, we used a mathematical model to compare five age-stratified prioritization strategies. A highly effective transmission-blocking vaccine ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
It discusses factors that influence the outcome of vaccine distribution decisions, like vaccine efficacy and population demographics. The study found that prioritising adults over 60 minimised mortality and years of life lost in most scenarios. However, prioritising adults between 20 and 49 minimised cumulative incidence of the virus. The best strategies for minimising mortality varied across countries and depended on factors like transmission rate and vaccination rollout speed. The authors conclude that this framework can be used to compare the impacts of different prioritisation strategies across different contexts.
One caveat is that the study did not explicitly consider the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, which could affect the results. Additionally, the study relied on estimates of epidemiological parameters, such as age-structured seroprevalence and infection fatality rate, which can vary across populations.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
vaccination in people with comorbidities. It discusses the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in this population, and summarises guidelines from the WHO, USA, and UK.
Important points from this article are that individuals with comorbidities are at higher risk of severe COVID, but the vaccines have shown similar efficacy and safety in people with and without comorbidities. The article also notes that there is limited data on severely immunocompromised patients, and more research is needed.
Health Alert on mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Safety The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges that the health and medical field have never encountered. Although the initial response was led by a sense of urgency and crisis management, the State Surgeon General believes it is critical that as public...
www.floridahealth.gov
vaccine safety. It discusses a substantial increase in Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports from Florida after the COVID vaccine rollout. 1 The State Surgeon General is notifying the health care sector and public of this increase. There is a need for additional unbiased research to better understand the COVId vaccines' short- and long-term effects. The findings in Florida are consistent with various studies that continue to uncover such risks
This is an article about prioritising Cvoid vaccination by age. It discusses the need for prioritisation strategies to save the most lives and maximise years of life saved. The authors argue that vaccinating the elderly first would save the most lives despite their lower life expectancy. This is supported by data from the United States, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, and Amazonas state. However, the authors also note that vaccine hesitancy among the elderly and non-compliance with prioritisation strategies could threaten the effectiveness of this approach.
what I'm getting at is there are a lot of trusted sources out there but they all give good conclusions but with a long list of caveats and people latch onto the caveats. Should the caveats be ignored? for the most part these are generalisations and generally can be subsumed into the laws of averages and percentages. However, some people ARE wary of these caveats - the reassurance was not great from teh government and the narrative.
I think what was missing during the pandemic was honesty. "We don't know" "Yes the vaccine may harm a small number of people, but it'll save more lives than not taking it" etc... sure I'm not a spin doctor or comms wizz (can you tell?
) but there was honesty missing.
What you,
@Unseul and others have said about vaccination to reduce viral load and the impact of transmission is of course correct, and I speak as someone that did get 2 jabs, but I wouldn't have cared being in the room with a bunch of unvaccinated people, as really it's none of my business. Going back to your immunocompromised example, if one of them said, I have issues, please wear a mask, or don't hug me today, or don't eat peanuts or whatever, I and I'm sure everyone in this thread would gladly comply. I think what a lot of people that are on the other side of the fence aren't happy about was the way it was done, and the fearmongering and unjustified segregation in society. there are lots of studies on the socio-economic inequalities of the vaccine roll out too, but that's a huge other debate.
I think if you look at the side effects it isn't any different to any medication, but I think the thing that makes people uneasy is the sheer volume of people taking it which means that by necessity the number of side effects reported will hugely increase. I mean myocarditis is now an accepted side effect especially common in young males under 25 especially after the second dose - whilst people generally respond well to the treatment that awareness of potential symptoms and what to look out for was not known because they were not that open or honest about it.
Our dear Tephnos has tinnitus, but that is also a suspected side effect of the vaccine - but also he could have got that from covid itself. Who knows.
I guess it's a gamble, do you risk getting long covid or getting some sort short/medium or longer term affliction via getting a bad case of covid if you're unvaccinated or do you go in with your eyes wide open have the vaccine but also have a responsible and reactive health service that will monitor/treat side effects from the vaccine. Let's face it the NHS is under so much strain that won't happen.
I'm not arguing against the vaccine, I'm suggesting that people being sceptical and cautious about taking it is perfectly justified, even more so if under 50 and healthy, but I also accept that the chance of getting a side effect which is dangerous is low, just like dying directly from covid is low if you're in that age group, but the longer term issues of the infection are not trivial. Ultimately it's impossible to run that control experiment, and who would want to segregate 100k+ people needed for a proper control trial to check the effectiveness of a vaccine or monitor the impact of the virus? I couldn't make that decision. With what I know now, I have largely been unaffected by covid (I don't think I have had it or at least was asymptomatic) so would it make a difference if I didn't take it? Probably not, other than travel would have been a damned site more annoying.
Sorry for the word dump. All in all I'm not disagreeing with anything you or others have said, I just think we need to be less aggressive towards people who are sceptical or worried - if anything that entrenches people more against vaccinations in the future. This is part of the problem with what happened was the extreme behaviours on both ends and the absolute language used.