I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of the opposition to both the vaccine and taking appropriate measures to contain the virus - like masking, social distancing, etc. - is sociopathic. People focused on their individual “rights” and “freedom” and damn everyone else.
I’m very tired of people who make the argument, “99% of people survive it,” as if death were the only consideration. When you are talking about millions of people getting the virus in the U.S. alone, 1% ends adds up to over 630,000 Americans dead. But besides that, we still have millions of people inflicted with pain, suffering, medical bills, possible permanent organ damage, lost wages, possible long term disability, because a very ignorant minority claims they would die for their country but they won’t wear a mask and get the vaccine. And the longer this goes on, the worse the effect on businesses, the more opportunity for yet another variant to mutate, and the more we have to endure lockdowns, interruption of our daily lives, sickness, and death.
Children are getting ready to go back to school and governors are signing executive orders that punish schools who take measures to keep COVID out of their schools. Just today, a doctor with a 10 year old daughter was interviewed on the radio. Her daughter just returned to school and masks are optional. This family has been taking great pains to avoid exposure to the virus for 18 months; three days into the school year, she was exposed to someone who tested positive at the school who was not wearing a mask. At least last year the school was providing virtual distance learning but now they are not.
Meanwhile Arkansas’s governor admits he made a mistake banning mask mandates. He had all the information he needed to make the right decision at the time but no, he had to bow to political pressure that was based on selfishness and ignorance.
There’s no excuse.
And yes, we know that Russia has been engaging in disinformation campaigns about the vaccine. Putin’s Puppets, many of whom consider themselves “patriots,” are playing right into their hands.
I’m sorry, I hope I’m not breaking the rules of engagement here by what I’ve said but I find this opposition to containing the virus irresponsible, incomprehensible, & inexcusable. It’s causing thousands of deaths and enormous suffering.
There’s a tweet of a nurse posting that the guy they are getting ready to intubate because he has COVID pneumonia is wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Don’t Fauci my Florida.” Perhaps if he dies he’d like to be buried in it.
Can’t seem to figure out how to post that image here.
https://imgur.com/gallery/gGL2Ti5
@Babichev 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Not getting the vaccine could kill a child as that is who it is starting to hospitalize and kill now.
On the good news front they are now encouraging pregnant women to get the vaccine because the mothers who did get it their babies are being born with the Covid antibodies—the baby is essentially immune to Covid. But yeah, let’s worry about the extremely rare possibility the vaccine could harm you. SMH.
@Melancholy It is not at all the same as people's argument against wearing a seatbelt. When you choose to get the vaccine, you are opting into a 100% chance of exposing yourself to some unknown risk, a risk that they have no idea what increases or decreases your risk factors for. No one had or has any explanation as to why my friend went into anaphylaxis from it. Yes, it is rare, but if you have the risk factors for it to happen to you, it may very well NOT be rare. The fact is that we don't know who is at risk and who should NOT get the vaccine because of these risk factors. The equivalent of this to your seatbelt analogy would be that people choosing not to wear a seatbelt would purposely be forced into some unknown accident type or severity if they chose to wear a seatbelt (the 100% exposure). Thus, they choose to not wear a seatbelt so they won't knowingly get into an accident. If they don't wear a seatbelt, they might still get into an accident, but maybe not, and they aren't willing to take the risk of being in the type of accident that a seatbelt will kill them knowing that they will 100% be in some type of accident. It's a common problem in the risk assessments people make in order to invalidate people's trepidations with the vaccine. You are comparing the 100% exposure to the vaccine x the ??% risk of having an adverse reaction to the vaccine with the ??% risk of being exposed to covid x the ??% risk of contracting covid x the ??% risk of having a bad case of covid. If you are more concerned about others than yourself then replace that last risk rate with ??% risk of giving covid to someone you care about instead of the risk of having a bad case of covid. At the end of the day, I am a Libertarian and until we can provide people all of this information, it's not reasonable to expect everyone to be willing to take some unknown risk to their own body. But I understand that most people on here disagree with me. I already know that I'm essentially the only non-Liberal professional cuddler in the country. 😆 But I am also someone who enjoys and appreciates cuddle clients of all political opinions and affiliations. I know plenty of professionals who won't see clients of the opposing political opinions. 🤷♀️ Oh well. I do appreciate this conversation and appreciate having the opportunity to present an opposing perspective...
@CuddleDuncan (blushes) lol. I really appreciate your story of my impact on you with this site. 😊 And I appreciate your ability to speak so respectfully about something you care so passionately about. That is the challenge sometimes...
@ubergigglefritz 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Very well said.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/after.html
@FunCartel the reason why some people don't trust that information is because it is factual that reactions are grossly underrepresented and underreported (true with everything). (1) Most people do not report reactions. (2) When my friend went to the hospital and said "I just had the covid vaccine and my throat is closing up" they literally told her "you're fine". If she had gone in and said "I had peanut butter, I'm allergic to peanuts, and my throat is closing up", they would have given her a shot and she would have been fine. Because of the lack of attention and treatment trying to downplay the seriousness of her reaction to the vaccine, she was hospitalized for days and had months of lasting physical effects. Unfortunately, it's a concerning true story, and one reason I just have a hard time believing anything right now. I'm stuck in a pit of trusting absolutely no one. 😆🤷♀️
I'm stuck in a pit of trusting absolutely no one.
Unfortunately, inaction can kill too. I understand your friend’s plight, but if someone has a severe reaction most people go to a health professional. By law they are required to report any events to the CDC. So most severe reactions are reported.
What should be more concerning is the Ro (the ability of a disease to spread) of the Delta variant. It is at a 6.5 now while the original COVID-19 was a 3. The math is simple. If a person got the original Covid-19, on average it spread to 3 people, so by the time those three people spread it, 9 people had it. The Delta, which has a higher mortality rate has a 6.5 which means the average person with Delta spreads it to 6 people. The second wave is up to 36 now. Four times the original. The vaccine prevents severe illness and death from it. Good luck if you are unvaccinated. A vaccine event does not spread and you normally know of any side effects from any vaccine within six weeks of getting it. If you read the information from the CDC, millions of people have received the vaccine and NO LONG TERM EFFECTS have occurred. These are facts and not my opinion. I really hope you heed these facts, because I live in a low vaccination state and people are being turned away at many hospitals. I have an acquaintance who works at an emergency room and he said they are having multiple members of the same family coming in. I am not trying to argue, I am trying to convey the seriousness of being unvaccinated at this time.
@FunCartel I live in a rural area, high vaccine area, low cases, wear my mask everywhere I go in public, have an immensely low unmasked exposure rate, etc. Like I said, everyone's risk assessment will be different because there are an immensely high number of factors that go into these decisions. I would never say that everyone in the world should make the same decision I do for just about anything, because I am aware that everyone's situation is entirely unique. 🤷♀️
Ok, that is your choice and I do hope you live in a high vaccinated population because the rural areas are the problem here and now it is bleeding over into the cities and burbs practically overnight because we are taking in the overflow and it spread like wildfire through the unvaccinated ranks. I wish you luck and continue masking up.
And to give context to what @Babichev wrote—we both live in the same state and several dozens of people have been arrested in this state for the Jan 6th Capitol riots. They are primarily in the Ozarks where there are counties as high as 90% that are unvaccinated fueling cases left and right. These areas have a high rate of meth production, guns, anti-government sentiment, and anti-science. I fully understand her frustration as we both had to drive hours to get the vaccine (I had a six hour drive) because our idiot governor, who plays to the rural crowd, decided early the cities did not need the vaccines and distributed them to isolated backwaters who wouldn’t take the vaccines themselves, while making it difficult for people in the cities and burbs to get it. The vaccine was politicized back in early February and that is why we have a low vaccination rate, a high case rate, and escalating death rates.
@FunCartel Thanks. Yep. I barely go anywhere right now. If I had more potential exposures, particularly unknown ones, my risk assessment would be different. I have best wishes for everyone... 😔
I talk to infectious disease doctors and nurses, daily - we're BFFs and we do a socially distant beer garden drink-a-rama every week. Last year, we did socially distant tail-gaters, but I digress. I like to think we're a jolly bunch when we get together, but they're tired. Tired of selfish, tired of willful ignorance. We could have beat Covid, but people are ignorant, and people are selfish.
This is sarcasm, so no one thinks otherwise: my favorite stories that I hear from these docs and nurses, every day since July 4th weekend, are the unvaccinated who are Covid positive, with symptoms, that go shopping, go to the stores, go out to eat, all without their masks, before they go to these infectious disease doctors for an appointment where the protocol is strict: call the front desk from the parking lot, wear a mask, and you will be escorted through the back door to an office that is setup with Covid protocols. Most of them don't even have a mask with them, so nurses have to bring one down to the parking lot. The Covid positive patients were initially in high risk groups. As time has gone by, ALL of the Covid positive patients have been unvaccinated, but the age ranges have dropped lower and lower. Most have refused vaccination because "it isn't FDA approved" or " the vaccine includes a tracking device" or "I think it's a hoax." The saddest story were two middle-aged siblings, both in high risk groups (obese and diabetes), both sick as dogs, and both came in for Covid treatment. The brother started the IV treatment that day. The sister refused treatment, just as she had refused vaccination, but she came back the next day, feeling even worse, while her brother had improved dramatically. It was at this point that she wanted the IV treatment, but nurses couldn't get her blood oxygen up to 85%, and the minimal level to receive the IV treatment had to be above 92%. She was taken to ER where she was intubated. She died 3 days later, drowning from her own lungs. Small consolation to her vaccine refusal, but that monoclonal treatment for Covid isn't "FDA approved" either, but "liberty" and "freedom" and... I'm sorry, but she's dead.
The same people who eschewed Covid vaccines, and because wearing masks and "being told what to do with my own body" arguments are the same very people who are taking up space in hospitals, taking up time and valuable resources from other people who DID get vaccinated, and DID follow health protocols and guidelines. Need a heart transplant? Broke your ribs in a fall? Car accident? Sorry - ICU is full right now. The libertarian argument would be that those who said no to the vaccine should be no to getting treatment: "that's the breaks, kid." The science-based truth is this: very few people will die from the Covid vaccines and boosters. A LOT more people will die because they weren't vaccinated. People CAN have allergic reactions to any vaccines, but the risk of NOT getting vaccinated against the Covid, the Delta variant, and emerging variants is far greater.
Good luck, unvaccinated - you'll need it. Science: it does a body good.
Don't believe in vaccinations? These are the vaccines developed and in which years they were developed:
1769, smallpox 1885, rabbies 1890, tetanus 1896, typhoid fever 1906, TB 1923, diphtheria 1926, whooping cough 1932, yellow fever 1937, flu 1952, polio 1963, measles 1967, mumps 1969, rubella 1974, chickenpox 1977, pneumococcus 1978, meningitis 2020, Covid-19 (the vaccine is new, but the TECHNOLOGY is 20+ years old)
@Sideon where does it say libertarians believe you shouldn't get medical care if you're unvaccinated?
Also, I am pro-vaccine. Get my flu shot every year. 😊 The people in your examples and generalized statements are definitely extreme examples! Lots of people lie somewhere in the middle.
Covid doesn't care about political parties, left, right, or middle, @ubergigglefritz . But good that you're pro-vaccine!
@Sideon Very good points! A co-worker of mine is in need of a hernia operation but his surgeon is having difficulty getting him scheduled in the hospital due to the resurgence of Covid. Granted, a hernia procedure isn't as major as heart surgery, cancer, or having some sort of major trauma, but it is still something that needs to be addressed and is being pushed back significantly due to the local hospitals being stretched to capacity from the whole Covid thang.
There is an interesting argument about the unknown risk of taking the vaccine. At first it seems compelling. But the reason we don’t have a great deal of data on vaccine risk is because of the minuscule number of serious adverse reactions. And even those few incidents are being studied to further reduce risk. On the other hand, the risk of unvaccinated COVID is quite well documented. Because of the huge number of victims.
The math is clear. I’ll take minuscule unknown risk over the well documented mountain of risk from unvaccinated COVID. And that’s why I got vaccinated.
The idea that “you do you, and I do me” can only be carried so far. We don’t live in a world where people exist without impacting each other. Without widespread vaccination, we run the risk of variants that evade the current vaccines. And then begins the endless cycle.
I got the covid vaccine and so did everyone in my social circle. About 30 people. None bad a bad reaction to it. But the one relative who didn't get the vaccine got covid and died. Already over 50% of Americans had the vaccines. If there was a real problem with it don't you think we would all know several people who had a problem ?? It would be all over the news. Fox news would have fun airing all those examples. They would make it front page news. It's really unreasonable to fear the vaccines when millions already faced that fear and tried it first. You're very late to the party. Vaccine has been out for several months !
If getting the COVID vaccination is “too dangerous” how in the hell do these folks eat a meal, take a shower, or drive a car?
Those things are all FAR more dangerous.
I need to stay off social media pages about Covid/Vaccines especially Facebook. It's stupidity on a stick. I wonder how many brain cells I lost.
@Sideon I was responding to you literally saying "The libertarian argument would be that those who said no to the vaccine should be no to getting treatment: "that's the breaks, kid."" You're the one who brought it up. 🤷♀️
So what’s the solution to reaching out to people who will not take the vaccine? Haranguing, harassing and calling stupid and dumb or dangerous will not help. Not saying that’s what’s going on in here, but there will always be people hesitant about anything the government puts out or mandates. Vaccination levels by ethnicity are Asians are above 70%, whites are above 60%, but latinos and blacks are below 40% closer to 30%. There’s been a mistrust of vaccines or government medical transactions from the black community. I have taken the vaccine but understand this is a free country and people should have the right to take it or not. I am against forced vaccines. So let’s find a solution that doesn’t involve name calling or harassment. We are all in this together.
The virus is never gonna end anyway if even the vaccinated can spread it as they claim.
@CharlesThePoet 🙄 Gotta love people's black and white, inaccurate comparisons.
Just the plain fact that eating and showering are essential life activities makes those comparisons GROSSLY inaccurate. If you don't eat you WILL die. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Not showering is 100% unhealthy for your body. If you don't get vaccinated, there IS no sure thing. You may get covid, you may not. You may get sick, you may not. You may die, you may not.
Risks related to eating and showering are almost entirely preventable if you take the proper precautions and are careful. While eating, take small bites, chew your food into teeny pieces, don't laugh or talk while eating, take your time, focus, etc (everyone doesn't do all of those things, but that's why accidents happen). For showering, use grippy shower mats, don't dance in the shower (lol), be generally careful, focus, etc. With the vaccine, we have no idea what causes people to have extreme reactions.
This year I was not-at-fault involved in an accident with a fatality, so don't talk to me about the risks there. I am still emotionally recovering seven months later. I don't drive anywhere that is not essential (no thanks to joy rides). Yes, you literally put you life in other people's hands just going on the road and there is nothing you can do about it. Some people do get away with being total shut-ins, but most people HAVE to drive sometimes, whether it's to the grocery store, to work, to medical appointments, etc. It is a life essential for most people. Practically unavoidable.
So in conclusion, your argument is completely invalid. 🤷♀️
@Ironman294 💜 You got it. You can almost see the effect of that on my transition from early comments to now. I apologize for any failure I make in continuing compassion. Attacking people only drives further division and pushes people away from any goal someone has of possibly enlightening someone to another possible perspective and choice. In addition, in a social media type setting, the gang mentality can make the "majority's" behavior get even worse, which further drives the "minority" away from any hope of both sides coming together with understanding and compassion. It's my biggest fear (at least in the US), WAY bigger than any covid fears, the further and further divided we become, and the greater inability people seem to have in listening to anyone different than them, and being compassionate to different perspectives. We are destroying ourselves way faster than any virus could possibly do the same. 🙁 I appreciate your comment.
@ubergigglefritz the country is divided and it’s bad. Used to be we could disagree on issues and still have a coffee together or watch a sporting event together. Now we can’t even do that anymore, civility is a thing of the past and it’s sad. I think we all can be guilty of being divisive at times but we can all do better.
@Ironman294 100%. We are all human and humans are imperfect. In this case, it's about recognizing our own failures, trying to improve, and slowly building new habits. I appreciate the positive energy. 🤗
These variants are real, deadly, and especially deadly to people who are not vaccinated. The states who refuse to acknowledge that are led by abjectly horrible people who are literally killing their citizens.
@ubergigglefritz - you've had horrible first-hand experiences and you've persevered, with grace and evident strength, which I respect. We have our respective beliefs and perspectives and we don't see eye to eye. We can take it up in PM if you want, but I'll not lean into this thread further. Peace.
@Ironman294 - we can also agree to disagree. Civility? That's fraught with assuming both sides are equal - they're not. Public health trumps individual freedoms - look at history. The world needs a 5th grade level biology education on viruses, vaccines, antibody defenses, cell and DNA structures, mRNA messengers, etc. Reimplement mask mandates through the end of the year at least, continue washing hands, practice social distancing, encourage vaccination campaigns in communities with less than 70% vaccination rates to encourage herd immunity and stop the spread of increasingly dangerous and deadly variants. These are the ways we get through Covid.
@natickben Yes that is true about the horrible people leading some of these states but it takes two to tango—people can still get the vaccine but many of them just aren’t. In addition, many who refuse to get the vaccine say please respect my choice and have compassion for me as I navigate this thing. Problem is, they are not respecting the health of others or having compassion for others by refusing to get a vaccine. They have not a care in the world that they may be transmitting it when they have some sniffles. I am slowly losing any compassion for the unvaccinated that contract the disease. I hate saying that but I know of two teenagers that are in the hospital because their parents were vaccine hesitant and would not allow them to get vaccinated. I feel for those kids but I have zero sympathy for the parents who ran out and got the vaccine for themselves after they saw what it did to their kids. This is not an “I” issue, this is a “we” issue and we are 7 months into vaccines and some are still scratching their heads sizing up the safety of the vaccine. It defies all logic.