Corona Virus Treatment

Great stat!

 

I've been vaccinated and it was my choice to do so, I didn't do it for the health of the bloke down the road who I have never spoken to, or ever likely to.
The whole way this virus has been run has been about arm twisting and trying to make you think you are doing all these things for others and not for yourself.
It is true that the vaccine has been a big success and the take up has been high, but I can't help thinking that I stand as much chance of catching covid from someone who is vaccined as from someone unvaccinated .
It's all part of how things seem to be going these days, the "them and us" society that they are trying to create in order to manipulate thinking and get people to comply,they certainly don't want free thinkers.

 

No - explicitly I am not saying that. I am deeply unhappy about it.

I am pointing out that the unvaccinated are choosing to ignore the very real and deadly consequences they are inflicting on their neighbours. There are consquences to not being vaccinated. Serious and deadly consequences.

I can only go with what 2 close friends, both NHS Consultants (Edinburgh and Bristol), tell me - together with the wide range of easily available credible and authoritative reports. You could try this one from the BMJ in Jan which shows that 66% of ICU beds are occupied by the unvaccinated - from a total population of 25% unvaccinated in the UK. ie massive over-representation of the unvaccinated in hospital.

I note the personal impacts in my own family of the unavailability of treatment - including emergency treatment when my 20 year old could not breathe at night but could get neither an ambulance nor an X-ray in Bristol, precisely because the hospital was so overwhelmed by the unvaccinated in triage. My elderly Dad who sat chewing opiates in his chair for 9 months with an undiagnosed spinal fracture - because hospitals in Oxford were so overwhelmed by the unvaccinated.

Tosh eh? Thanks.

Let me try to make the point more simply: if I am vaccinated I will be less sick or potentially never infected by COVID. This materially reduces the risk of me infecting others. Around me there are those who are vulnerable for a wide range of reasons or immune compromised say, who I protect by being vaccinated and not infecting them either because I never got infected - because I am vaccinated - or because I was infectious for much shorter periods and so less liekly to infect others.

I didn't make that argument so that's a bit straw man here.

No. I am pointing out that large numbers of vulnerable people - not one or two - are effectively held hostage in their houses because of the unvaccinated. I would also point out that the continuation of this disease as long as it has been is a direcet result of the refusal of conspiracists to get vaccinated. As the WHO has pointed out repeatedly: refusal to vaccinate gives COVID a much bigger mutational hiding place.

One could not question the efficacy of COVID vaccines if we looked at the evidence which is categoric and overwhelming. I am not an epidemiologist so I'll leave effiacy to them. And they have concluded virtually unanimously.

Then I wouldn't take the vaccine. You are following medical advice and you are precisely the category of person that the rest of us should be vaccinated for - to protect you.

You are an anti-vaxxer if you spread anti-evidence consipracy.

And that is horrific. And sadly the reality of evidence based medicine being implemented by flawed humans. I would still point out that evidence based medicine has to be better than lay people making it up. Or worse - as happens now - a very well funded, politically motivated, international movement pushing anti-science.

Agreed. And the hardest bit is how fast this moves and how fast the evidence accumulates. We still only have the evidence to go on though. The issue is people believing that they have a right to intepret the evidence when they do not have the capability to do so.

I don't think - given the 200k or so dead from COVID in the UK, and the 5milion plus globally, that this is an argument against vaccination.

Agree. And it isn't simple. But I don't think you being refused the vaccine twice is quite the same as someone believing COVID denialist conspiracy: you are precisely the kind of person who we should be protecting as a society by everyone who can getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.

 

Well... there are plenty who beleive in society, who think that a minor inconvenience to protect others from long COVID or death in significant numbers is definitely a good thing.

I'm sorry but the evidence does not support your belief.

I agree. I just disagree - fundamentally - about who is causing the division, and likely, what a free thinker is.

 

A free thinker is someone who looks at all the evidence and then makes up their own mind.
The whole covid thing has been ridiculous, people wanting to be told if it's ok to meet 1 other person but you mustn't meet 2.
Questions like is it safe to use public transport.
These are things you decide for yourself and no one else can tell you what is safe.
But it's not just covid related, it's about nobody wanting to take responsibility for their own actions these days.
So ask someone else, and then when it all goes wrong you can blame them.

 

Where are these "free thinkers" getting their evidence from? One of the disasters of life in 2022, is that we have been infected by the disease of opinion: we are encouraged daily to hold opinions on subjects which we know nothing about - by people who have strong financial and vested interests in persuading us to be angry about them. To quote Paul Dacre: "My job is to give the British people something new to be angry about every day".

And how well he succeeded.

Again - I go with what the people with PhDs who have spent 30 years studying epidemiology say. If they say reduce your social contact because it reduces infection - I'll just take what they say and not try to second guess it. After all - I am entirely unqualfied in both epidemiology and virology.

How do you know if it is safe if you are not an epidemiologist? Where does this certainty come from? Any chance it is badly misplaced? 'Safe' is of course a relative concept. But I have no place deciding what is 'safe' in a pandemic if I am not qualified to assess the evidence.

I too could make this accusation - strongly - about those who choose which 'evidence' they want to adopt. Responsibility for my actions starts with knowing my limits and not beng persuaded to adopt grievance politics about stuff I actually know nothing about.

In a global pandemic I don't think this really can be said to apply...

 

Suspension of the AZ vaccine in the EU did have a positive side. The vaccines that the EU refused went early and in numbers to the Nepalese people. So they weren't wasted.

Apparently AZ provides a wider ranging and longer lasting immunity than others - but then hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it.

 

I didn't know that. I have some connections in West Africa and the lack of access to vaccines has been a big issue politically. They have had a very different response to COVID from us. While at one level more suscetible - potentially because of the lower level of vitamin D production in darker skin - the profile of those who died was very different I understand. They have lost more young people than we did for eg - so I am told.

And yes: an old mate always say 'the hindsight portfolio performs well'. Well - quite! It's why I don't mind honest decisions being wrong. Its the unscrupulous or corrupt ones which make me mad.

 

I heard that the age profile in Africa leans more towards younger people than it does in the UK for example. Perhaps this was why Witters wanted to wait and not rely upon the experience of S Africa when it came to Omicron?

Looks like Boris is getting rid of all restrictions when UK Parliament returns on the 21st. Here in Wales we will hear from Mark tomorrow if he is going to lift restrictions around covid passports and masks - he needs to do something as public good will/co-operation is running thin.

 

Yes - we've lifted all restrictions, and interestingly, all statistical reporting in Jersey today. I understand it: but I seriously worry that this effectively creates a population of people who will feel that they cannot go out.

 

No - re-read it: you said coercion. I said not happy with coercion. I am happy if there are consequences for the unvaccinated, and in the light of the conversation, I'll caveat that further - and say 'deliberately and for no reason unvaccinated'. The point being, that choice not to vaccinate for no good reason has serious consequences for others.

But the consequence is that they risk killing their neighbours. If I live up a mountain and never see anyone - who cares! Not me. But if I'm out and about...then yes. There are consquences to others. I've lived with an immune suppressed child (through the MMR stupidity in N London too) and I was raging then about the anti-vaxxers who endangered my child's life. But it was the stupidity of believing lies that was the issue - not those who had genuine medical issues to consider.

Absolutely. All of the public measures have been about protecting the vulnerable, and keeping our hospitals going.

Knowing a few involved in presenting COVID policy to the general public I just do not beleive this. I do not think there is any agenda to keep people scared. On the contrary in fact. A serious awareness of the factual risks: we need folks to face that.

Absolutely. I read Allyson Pollock's excellent academic examination of what has happened to the NHS since 1997...it's an absolute tragedy, starting with the introduction of the internal market (I'm an accountant by trade way back when, and this insanity really did hurt the NHS very badly), followed by the creeping privatisation, the cuts to funding and Hunt's change to the fundamentals in 2012 when he removed the statutory obligation to provide healthcare from the Health Minister. The NHS simultaneously changed its mandate from providing excellent care, to providing adequate care. These were not small changes. The NHS is a shadow of itself and the population has been persuaded that we cannot afford a proper health service. We might note that come the moment, our current government was able to find and lose £38bn on PPE of which a staggering £20bn cannot be accounted for.

So yes. The state of the NHS matters. But it's not the only factor.

Indirectly - and that's not a small indirect, it's massive - me being vaccinated clearly protects others. Even more so with masks. Masks don't protect me: they protect others from me.

You'd be right to be sceptical of any 'news' source that claimed the vaccinated were more likely to catch Omicron than the unvaccinated. This is where the source of info really matters. So when I google there are a lot of sites out there talking about this topic. But the ones that are going to be evidence based and reliable are WHO, CDC, BMJ - etc. In this case, the CDC has a good article: COVID-19 Incidence and Death Rates Among Unvaccinated ...

It's a bit tough going but the basic them is clear: Omicron infection is MUCH higher among the unvaccinated - and the impacts of getting it are much worse.

But had we had better vaccine take up... you'd have been a lot safer! For those who are vulnerable and cannmot be vaccinated, it's just not that difficult for the rest of us to get the shot.

I worked for an aid agency for a while, and have been part of the team getting a cold-chain of yellow fever into refugee camps in Guinea (as the finance guy I had to make sure it got there and was put into peoples' arms). It makes me laugh when the uber-anti-vaxxers get going: I want to say - pop out and see what a dose of yellow fever or typhoid can do when it gets going among the unvaccinated.

Don't know - I'm not an epidemiologist! I'll go with what they say.

Yup - a much lower risk. Surely we should go with that?

So the guy you mention is Robert Malone - and he is effectively a flat earther. He is making a fortune out of his position - and has been rejected entirely by his colleagues and profession. Think of it this way: if he actually had a point, he'd win a nobel prize. As it is, he has zero evidence for his position, but does very nciely from the lucrative business of anti-vaxx. Blood on his hands

Never - and we haven't. We should though exclude flat eathers and their ilk. (Amusingly I have a young colleague with a 1st in Maths from Warwick who does actually believe the earth is flat. It's very difficult to have a social conversation with him!)

This is too general a group: I can't argue here against such a generalisation. But in all groups, including scientists, there are some who are irrational sadly. There is no rational reason for not getting the shot if you are medically able to do so. The evidence is absolutely overwhelmingly in favour of it. For this to be not true, we have to conclude that either 1) there is a huge conspiracy involving millions of scientists and doctors around the world or 2) these folks are wrong in an epic flat earth type way.

The much more likely scenario is that there are a few cranks like my colleague out there whos views are a bit inexplicable.

Produce some evidence to the contrary and the world is listening. I am aware of no such - just some generalised 'fears' which just is not good enough.

 

Oh Vaughan - just look at the numbers - it's time to end all restrictions. You are not making yourself 'popular' with the electorate. You're also messing up the Welsh economy - people will simply shop across the border where masks are not required.

Wales remaining Covid laws - including on face coverings and self-isolation - could be scrapped by the end of March.