Covid-19 Jab

[SydneyRover]

All the jabs past my school years have been optional, yellow fever jab was for entry to certain countries I forget which.

The UK is similar to Oz with these

DTP & Meningitis ACWY. Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio teenage booster vaccine. ...
Infant BCG. Protection (up to 80%) against severe forms of childhood TB, such as TB meningitis. ...
HPV. The HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccination protects against cervical cancer.

My cousin died in the fifties from gangrene. The HPV jab has almost entirely wiped out cervical cancer in the past 10 years.

added, I've had the hep A&B jab too.

[drfchound]

I had the first two jabs when offered. I did so purely because at that time if I hadn't, certain civil liberties would have been withdrawn. I wanted to attend certain events, eat out if I wanted to and mainly, I wanted to be able to travel on an aeroplane.

Would I have had the jab were it not for being forced into a positon whereby I had to balance my unease at the way we were being coerced, against my desire to go to a sporting event or on holiday? Nope. No chance. And I still resent the fact I was effectively forced to make that choice if I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it. I'm uncomfortable with that and remain concerned about how society (myself included) was so easily pushed in a certain direction.

There was one thing we did draw the line at though. There was no way our then 3 year old daughter was having it.  They could have locked us out of society forever if they wanted, but there was no way we would have gone down that road even if it meant no holidays again ever! Had they made it mandatory for children, we'd have stayed in our house forever.

TC, I remember all that which you have written about above.
People were getting stick if they were leaning towards not having the jabs and even on this forum I can recall one or two posters being slated for suggesting they were not going to have it.
It got quite aggressive.

[ravenrover]

The effects of catching something like polio would have prevented you taking part in mamy aspects of every day life. I was talking to my 8 year old grandaughter a few days ago, she had just had her flu "jab" inhalation up her nose and I was telling her about having my polio vaccine on a sugar cube she was amazed. Even at 8 years old she was asking about what effects the various diseases back then in the olden days,  had on people.
Both she and her 5 year old brother brought Covid home with them presumably from school which we all caught. Her Dad surprisingly didn't and hasn't caught it which is a bonus as he was diagnosed with lung cancer last year and was the one at greatest risk. Treatment has gone well though, thankfully

[The Red Baron]

Feeling a lot better today so the effects clearly last for about 24 hours.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Feeling a lot better today so the effects clearly last for about 24 hours.

Good to hear. Onwards and upwards.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm going to try to explain gently and without rancour why I was so angry at the time at those who took pride in not having the virus. Time's moved on. I haven't changed my opinion one inch but the heat of the moment is no longer there.

Part of the intensity of the disagreement was because it goes right to the core of what our role is in society. I passionately believe that before you earn the right to do anything, you have a responsibility to act in a way that does as little unnecessary harm to others as you can. Some on the more libertarian side of things have a different take that rights come first and your only responsibility is that you don't do anything ACTIVELY which hurts others.

The difference seems minor but on the vaccine issue it was a huge chasm.

My argument for why I think vaccine-refusers were wrong rests on two points.

First is the mechanics one. The vaccine didn't stop transmission but it greatly reduced it. By preventing some people catching COVID at all, and greatly reducing the severity of the symptoms in others. So, on average, those who didn't take the vaccine were more infectious than those who did. They (not deliberately) aided the severity of any outbreak. Unwittingly, their decision did harm to others.

Secondly, there's a more subtle but I think more important point. Many of those who stridently refused the vaccine had the opinion that it was their right to run their own risk. They justify that by outcomes where they caught a dose and it wasn't a bad one.

That would be a fine argument, and I'd entirely agree with it IF they were the only people in society.

But they aren't. They are part of a society made up of millions. And in this case, the key was not what happened to any individual, but what happened to society overall.

As best I can see, roughly 1 in 100 UK citizens between the ages of 40-60 ended up in hospital after catching COVID. So yeah, each individual looking at that and saying they are happy to take the risk is has a case (not one I agree with, but I do accept that others would have a different attitude.) The case is that I've got a 99% chance of being fine.

But it's not about the individual. There are 15,000,000 people between 40 and 60 in the UK. If half of them caught COVID, and 1% of those ended up in hospital, that's 75,000 people. [1]

But the entire NHS only has about 70,000 beds.

That's the point. It's not about any individual making the choice to not have the vaccine, and being fine. It's the fact that if EVERYONE did that, the NHS collapses. So if someone had a heart attack during a COVID outbreak, like my mother did, if the hospitals had been full of the small fraction of vaccine-refusers who coped a bad dose, they'd have been left to die at home.

That's the issue. The decision not to have a vaccine wasn't one that only affected the person concerned. It could have had massive society-wide effects if everyone had (forgive the perjorative word, but I can't think of a better one) selfishly chosen only to consider themselves.

[1] I think one of the key things that made me so angry at the time was that vaccine-refusers I spoke to at the time were implacably against engaging with those numbers. They used (and still use) the justification "none of my mates took the vaccine and none of them ended up in hospital" as if that clinches the whole argument. But of course it doesn't. If only 1% of half of people cop a bad one, chances are you don't know many, if any of them personally. But they still exist.

And there's a LOT of people out there. And a surprisingly small amount of NHS capacity. Because the NHS is based on the idea that only a very, very tiny proportion of people get ill at any one time.

But in a world where many refused the vaccine, a small, but not very, very tiny proportion of them would have got very ill at the same time. And that would have collapsed the NHS. And done untold damage to other people.

[ravenrover]

I wonder how many didn't know they had Covid if symptoms were not severe? I didn't know until I was encouraged to test as my syptoms were so minor.

[Hounslowrover]

True RR, I tested before disembarking the ferry to meet French friends, I tested positive, I had absolutely no symptoms and was fine.  Lack of individual testing was obviously a problem for people with little or no symptoms as they continued as usual.

[SydneyRover]

Imagine another disease with effects similar or worse than polio and as rampant as covid, you'd get killed in the rush for a vaccine.