People who reluctantly got vaccinated, how has your life been affected?

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357031#Comment_118357031

The breadth of human activity and knowledge is vast these days. Maybe 300 years ago was the last time that a brilliiant, educated person could understand everything. I don't feel bad about not understanding huge swathes of technology or crafts. I have expertise in my little corner, and I trust that the folks who have jumped through the same/similar hoops as I have are expert in theirs.

Perhaps this is why vaccine reluctance is least in the folks who understand the most about the biology? And highest amongst those who have less understanding of expertise in any field (first relevant study that Google throws up is this).

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358026#Comment_118358026

That's very understanding of you, but apologies, I was being a little sarcastic. I understand perfectly well what both immunity and herd immunity mean. Or at least what they used to mean.

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358126#Comment_118358126

Ok, then I'm not sure what you are questioning? We have established that the 'common' meaning of immunity (e.g. 'I'm immune to your sarcasm' 😜) is quite different from the scientific meaning of immunity in biology. Is there something else that needs clarification?

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358312#Comment_118358312

I'm far from convinced that we have established the medical meaning of immunity in terms of a doctor saying 'I recommend you take this vaccine because it will help give you immunity from this disease".

But no worries, I don't need clarification on the meaning of immunity. As I said I understand it perfectly well.

Most vaccine hesitancy does not come down to public misunderstanding the concept of immunity or indeed, herd immunity.

It is a result of our politicians overestimating the effectiveness of the vaccine. This time 12 months ago, there was a sense that vaccines would end the pandemic, that herd immunity was a realistic possibility and life could go back to normal.

It is now clear that these vaccines are not providing as much immunity as initially hoped, (although they have undoubted other benefits more akin to an antiviral drug) and herd immunity is currently a pipe dream.

I don't really have a problem with the fact these vaccines will not get us to herd immunity, it's the sort of Stockholm Syndrome effect I object to.

Rather than say let's hope Pfizer et al are continuing to improve these and they will come out with a superior v2, everybody seems to be shifting the goalposts on what immune/immunity/immunisation etc means in a bid to claim that the vaccines are fantastic and our only problem is we're not taking them regularly enough and not giving them to children fast enough.

It's madness. And many people who are vaccine hesitant are looking at this, scratching their heads and thinking the more these vaccine goalposts shift, the more questions it raises about the vaccine.

And then they hear people claim that in fact the goalposts have not shifted, most people totally expected this is where we'd be almost 12 months into an immunisation programme with an astonishingly high take up, immunity doesn't mean what it means with other vaccines, and if you didn't understand that 12 months ago then you're probably just a bit thick, but don't worry the smart people will keep you right.

Totally bonkers!

generic_throwaway

Well I guess the way I see I see it going from here is that the disease becomes endemic, like a more deadly version of the flu that occasionally kills perfectly healthy people and even babies. You get an annual jab to cover you for when (no longer if) you get the common strains. We will lose a lot of people to this on an ongoing basis - although I'd expect treatments and survivability to improve, when everyone is getting it the number of fatalities still increases.

Some decisions have to be made - do we double our intensive care provision (at great cost) to cope with this on an ongoing basis? Do we require vaccinations to attend schools and colleges and workplaces? Do we provide different health services for people who chose not to take precautions?

But we're not putting the genie back in the bottle.

I'm not sure why you have contempt for expertise though. It's become a real thing in the Trumpy post-truth world.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358541#Comment_118358541

What expertise did I show contempt for?

JimmyVik

I always get the flu vaccine. Happy to vaccinate kids. Even got the chicken pox vaccine for kids.

I took the 2 pfizer jabs happily.

As time went on I started to think that the whole vaccine program is vaccinate first and see if it works later. Not really scientific and in my mind kinda dangerous science.

So i was thinking about not getting the booster. In the end i decided to get the booster.

Now I hear Israel is starting their 4th dose just 4 months after the 3rd dose.

Im even more convinced this is hot and hope.

So yesterday got an email from the school about vaccinating 5 year olds, together with a link to the HSE on the subject. I read it and its vague.

The HSE have gone from telling us kids cant get it, to kids get a very mild dose, to kids cant spread it to vaccinate the kids now.

So on their website i decided to look of the stats and severity of the disease in 5 year olds and nothing just vagueness. What i wanted to read was something like, and im making these figures up "10000 children age 5 got it. 4800 were very mild symptoms. 200 went to hospital, 1 ended up in ICU, 1 died. Those who went to hospital 90% had underlying issues. The one who died was already very sick".

Thats what you need to make an informed decision. Not the drivel from the HSE we have constantly been getting.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359704#Comment_118359704

Totally agree with all this.

On making an informed decision for 5 year olds I found reading the full NIAC report very helpful.

https://rcpi-live-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/NIAC-Recommendations-on-COVID-19-vaccination-for-children-aged-5-to-11-years.pdf