Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Well fear is seldom rationale i guess. I had to sporadically spend 2 months to persuade my mum to get the shots as she would not even finish the conversation at time as she only felt preassured into something she was not comfortable with. Eventually she caved and is now very happy she got them and havent heard anything about concearns since.

Some vaccinations only required it to be vaccinated once in their life, other require regular vaccination.

COVID-19 fall into the latter.

What about the people who don't do LFTs/PCRs 'because the swabs give you cancer'? The people I know like that haven't had a vaccine either.

Really.

No point arguing with someone who only looks at data they like.

Isn't that a perfect example of cognitive bias?

It was more an add on to the rest of the point, to say they have value anyway but also that they have slowed down transmission and made things much better in that regard. Maybe your expectations that they would stop all spread was too high, they really would be miracles to manage that in a year or so without actually vaccinating everyone.

Apparently. The swabs are sterilised with ethylene oxide which isn't something you want to inhale. some people think the swabs are 'coated in ethylene oxide', videos etc on Facebook. The lady that cuts my other halfs hair is very concerned about it.

Yes i likely had to high expectations. But things were looking pretty good just a few months ago :/

I know of someone who is afraid of sharks when on land. Granted this was during an anxiety period but there are all kinds of missplaced fears .) Thankfully those are uncommon and likely wont affect any meaningful statistics.

A summary of the past week on this thread:
Everyone trusts the data implicitly
People who get their news from the bbc/ guardian complain they are being gaslighted by the bbc/ guardian
Anti-vaxxers mush be thick, repeat to fade
Graphs can be interpreted in many ways
I have the following symptoms:
Are you testing correctly

I don't think the swab fear is like a phobia if sharks. It's Facebook sourced misinformation and people who are unable to evaluate a source. Presumably they weren't very interested in history at school.

Ah okay i thought u gave that example as one of the groups that could perhaps be the reason for missrepresenting data in who reported if they got covid or not in vaccinated vs unvacinated groups. My point was then that both fears are not likely to cause any meaningful change of statistics as they ought to be rather small on a population scale.

Ah well ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance. Also quite dangerous substance at room temp.

Hence why it is controlled.

Anti-vaxxers mush be thick

Not sure anyone was advocating liquidising them

I realized that my knowledge fell into a hole with the booster (and indeed it definitely still does to a large extent). It was one of the times when I realized that I had to rely on people knowing more than me.

Tetanus is another thing where the vaccine needs boosting.

But things were looking pretty good just a few months ago

They were looking less bad, then there was a mutation that has allowed a lot of reinfection and vaccine avoidance, which is a shitter. It's all still relatively new at the moment, maybe future boosters can be tweaked to be more effective, who knows? Still much better with vaccines than without.

Saying we are better off with vaccines is all well an true but my whole point when going forward is.. unless the future boosters can prevent the spread to reach our parents and grandparents etc many will likely weigh pros and cons of vaccination differently than before this variant.

If it turns out u cant protect anyone but yrself and that the risk is not greater than any other day to day risks ppl take in their lives then why should one continue to vaccinate every 5 month or whatever? The cut off point for risk / reward will be different for everyone ofc. Some ride a bike without helmet some eat junk food and smoke for their entire life and so on.

What is the average risk for a person say in their 40s with no known health issues who have had covid before to have severe covid the 2nd time around ? Who knows but that risk i would wager is very small so whats the incentive for such a person to keep getting vaccinated if they are doing it only to reduce their own miniscule risk?

many will likely weigh pros and cons of vaccination differently than before this variant.

Pros: A massively reduced risk of hospitalisation, death and long term symptoms.

Cons: A chance of feeling a bit rough for a day or two, and a miniscule risk of long-term side effects.

The data is out there. Over 9 billion vaccine doses have been administered.

And once again, you seem to be overlooking the fact that vaccines don't just have a personal benefit. Maybe you consider that individual choice doesn't require the individual to take account of the wider consequences of that choice. If so, I respectfully disagree.

Edited:

I dont think im overlooking that, im wondering what the benefits other than personal reduced risk are and what does the reduced personal risk amount to? You say massive, personally i think for a healthy person who have had covid all rdy without complications and is vaccinated the risk is all rdy so low that reducing it further with booster shots perhaps has little meaning. Again risk vs reward without data is just speculation. I imagine there are plenty of shots i dont take like tbe / lyme and similar cause its a risk i have thought is acceptable, tho that is not a thought over process but more due to it not beeing on my radar type thing.

Ofc i think one has to consider how individual choice reflects in a wider sense. Thats how this whole discussion started.. With me reasoning if we no longer are protecting the old and frail (and other ppl in general for that matter) since the infections are increasing faster than ever even in the vaccinated group the incentive to get boosters may change since i think a large part of why many got vaccinated did so because it was the right thing to do from a societal perspective.

Current favourite graph. Admissions have definitely stalled. Would be brave to say they’ve peaked. Whilst at present we are at the lower end of the modelling think it’s reasonable to say it’s been pretty accurate so far.
This week is the week you’d expect Christmas gatherings to really start hitting admissions 🤞

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One thing that doesn't seem to get much chat in here: global vaccination.

To me it seems to be the most important point. Variants such as Omicron are more likely to emerge in areas with a a low percentage of partial vaccination. These variants then reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines, everywhere, leading to a need for boosters or new vaccines.

To combat this, we need to get the whole world vaccinated. Not just make sure that Brits can have a 3 X super boosted, with a Pfizer on the side, BOGOF vaccine programme.

One thing that doesn't seem to get much chat in here: global vaccination.

Yeah, would prefer this to another booster over here, it's what I was alluding to when I said unvaccinated populations.

With me reasoning if we no longer are protecting the old and frail (and other ppl in general for that matter) since the infections are increasing faster than ever even in the vaccinated group the incentive to get boosters may change since i think a large part of why many got vaccinated did so because it was the right thing to do from a societal perspective.

Boosters do help protect the old and frail though, they make you less likely to get or spread the virus, which will help them. Yes infection rates are increasing, but they'd be increasing moreso without a booster.

Apparently excess deaths in South Africa hit 30% recently, nearly at the level they had in January 2021. A reminder that just because case numbers/admissions/deaths appear low in some countries, it might not be indicative of the bigger picture.

In other news, I learned something that genuinely suprised me today. Omicron is over 50% more pathogenic than the original Wuhan variant. Human immune systems are amazing.