Anyone else feel ashamed of getting the Covid shots?

I wonder should the question be 'Do you regret not getting the vaccine". There seems to be a lot of posters who are fully vaxxed and still got Covid. As the unvaxxed are the control group as such having not had any jabs. I wonder have many of them contracted Covid (how many times) and how severe it was? Would you now get the vaccine after your Covid infection? For me unvaxxed it was 3 years ago very mild and never contracted it again to my knowledge. I believe i have sufficient antibodies from that episode so no I wont be getting the Covid jab. Anyone else?

It's easy to have regrets when you fail to understand what coukd have happened. The Spanish Flu ( the previous pandemic in 1918/1919) killed approximately 23K people it effected mostly young adults.

The projected death rate if we let it rip was expected to be 50-90k, there was no projections firbthise with longer term effects. A vaccine was the only option to get back to large scale interaction.

They are the figures for Ireland

Only around 5% of adults in Ireland didn't get vaccinated, and it's likely that a significant portion of them are "against vaccines", so you probably won't get a straight answer in that regard

Anecdotes aside, for the population we have the stats and figures, the survival rate for unvaccinated people who contracted Covid is relatively high (depending on age). That said, unvaccinated people are still 5 to 8 times more likely (depending on age) to be hospitalized as a result of Covid

The worst thing is, COVID did turn out to be relatively mild, but the distrust that the anti-vaxxers fostered has set us up for a very different outcome when the next more serious disease comes around.

Anti-vaxxers are anti-vaxxers despite what some here are claiming they have undermined faith in vaccine programs as a whole.

I would be of the opposite persuasion. I believe the bodged roll out and all the mis information/false promises and coercion of the Covid vaccine rollout has done serious damage to further vaccination programs.

As much as you try and force that narrative you are still not correct re anti vaxxers. Someone who did not take the Covid vaccine is not necessarily an anti vaxxer. Myself included.

It's your choice not to take the vaccine, but it's when you start trying to validate that it falls apart.

If an adult doesn't want to take the jab, okay, but they are simply increasing their risk of hospitalization/death due to Covid (increasing with age). That fact cannot be argued with.

The virus has disproportionately killed anti-vaxxers. People who have developed false ideological beliefs about medical treatment - which in itself is literally dangerous. Each one of those is a life which could have potentially been saved if they had just had the jab.

The first strains of Covid 19 were not that mild. Look at the death rate in Italy at the early stages of the outbreak. In March and April 2020 they had 50k excess deaths about 1 per 1k adults and this was with a strict home quarantine from mid March on. Yes when the Omicron strain came along at Christmas 2021 it was a mild version. However at that stage virtually everyone had there first vaccine shot and many had there second.

With the significant numbers in hospital and significant waves of Covid among a vaccinated population it is safe to say the vaccination program has been a failure.

There is no point in trying to debate with people who have no understanding of hiw vaccination works. It similar when debating economic issues with people who can not add 2+2

Just 12 sources on social media are responsible for the majority of anti-vaccine propaganda

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes

Turns out it's pretty easy to fool certain people. Unfortunately it's not some harmless conspiracy theory, people die because of this stuff.

Then there were the 5% of real fools.

Indeed. 7 million have already died. And that's with the vast majority of the world's population vaccinated, vaccines that reduced deaths by up to 80% (depending on variant).

Without vaccines it would have been multiples of that 7 million.

It goes without saying that the vaccines were also needed to reduce strain on national health systems pushed to the limit during peaks in the pandemic by reducing hospitalizations. Unvaccinated people unfortunately didn't get that memo and a higher proportion of them ended up in ICU beds - at one point accounting for over three quarters of ICU patients despite only representing a low percentage of the population.

It's amazing that at this stage, and despite everything we know, we still have individuals who persist on denying this through "questioning" and "gut instinct".

Yes Covid is not as straight forward as an one size fits all. Some persons absolutely should have got the vaccine. The elderly..underlying conditions etc. The not at risk groups..well that should explain itself. I was in a not at risk group and did not get it. I am not an anti vaxxer. Vaccines are great generally. But like all drugs misuse and over use often create more problems then they solve. Medicine is not always right and constantly evolvers changes and learns. Blind faith in medicine without question is a foolish mans game.

There's zero blind faith in medicine. You haven't remotely justified such a contention. Premise rejected as without foundation and in the context of this thread without merit.

It has been explained to you multiple times, with reference to ICU admissions, hospitalizations. It is a numbers game.

Even lower risk people could end up in ICU, end up in hospital. Covid is a highly infectious disease. That translates into numbers putting strain on hospital capacity. The low risk people pull through, but that's ICU beds taken out of operation.
Without vaccination, those numbers are higher and the system can't cope. Entirely justified to have a public vaccination campaign in that scenario across age groups, not just the highly vulnerable.
There's no "not at risk" groups. Everybody was at risk, the difference was greater for some than others.

And in the context of the vaccine rollout, during the critical period of opening up in summer 2021 there's abundant evidence, cited on the thread, showing reduction in risk of infection and spread in vaccinated people.
This also justifies the rollout across age groups in 2021.

You have no real argument because you're completely failing to engage with the real world scientific data which discredits your claims. Whether your position is coming from an anti vax or covid denier agenda, I don't know, but I've seen these discredited arguments before from both sources many times. It is obvious when we see trite one liners about 'medicine' and steadfast refusal to engage with the scientific evidence and the public health arguments.