Are the corona virus idiots doing us a favour?

I am always very wary of saying 'never'. There may be circumstances where compulsory vaccination is necessary. A very infectious disease with a huge mortality rate, say 50% plus, but in all normal circumstances, no medical treatment should ever be compulsory.

In a democracy, compulsory vaccination is not acceptable. All the government can do is encourage uptake of the vaccine. Like EllenVallen, I am tempted to think it should be compulsory but, until we become like China, it is not going to happen and nor should it.

I remember the Asian flu of 1957/8. It caused tremendous disruption in the area I was living at the time. Some of my school friends and their family members were very ill. My school was closed. ICUs barely existed so death was more likely then. A vaccine was developed very quickly and helped reduce the death rate. The final death rate in the UK was 33,000 and 4,000,000 worldwide.The 1968 HK flu caused 80,000 deaths in the U.K.

M0nica- I’m not saying I wouldn’t have it, but the thought of forced vaccinations makes me very uncomfortable.

There should always be the option to make an informed choice. Informed about what? False rumours, unproven science? A ludicrous belief that life and all medications must be 100% free of side effects and remote dangers

When did you last cross a busy road?

No vaccine should be compulsory. There should always be the option to make an informed choice. Most people will choose to be vaccinated, but forced vaccination is a worrying concept.

Sorry Ellen it wouldn't. Each year the flu type is different and a universal flu vaccine has yet to be developed

the flu vaccine will not stop Corona virus pandemics or any pandemic that isn't flu.

The 'flu vaccine ( H3N2 )should be made compulsory for every citizen before each winter. Children can have it nasally.
In the last week of November 2019, 11,000 people died from 'flu ! Doesn't that alone tell everyone something ?
These figures have been going up each year ! It would avoid future pandemics.

How upsetting Gossamer. Hope they will be ok. Was it long after her vaccination that your daughter caught it?

My daughter is a front line nurse.
She has had her first vaccination, but has caught Covid19, she thinks, from a patient. Her husband also has it, (he is a teacher). I just hope and pray they will both be OK. Looking at her shift pattern, she is due to work 60 hours a week, and that can't be right.

Often the case MOnica. events dear boy (girl), events.

Previous pandemics were massively disruptive, leading to major social changes. This applies to both the Black Death and the 1918 flu epidemic, where the changes were combined with the effects of WW1.

The Black Death triggered the change from a medieval economy to a modern capitalist economy. The drop in male population in the WW1, combined with the loss of a swathe of working age people in the pandemic did more for the growth of personal and economic freedom for women than all the feminist campaigns out.

I don’t know the answer, protecting, assisting, paying., advising. The alternative for many has been death. I just found the figures startling and food for thought.

Does “protecting” mean confining?

If the virus had been allowed to be transmitted throughout the general population, it would have mutated faster than it is now. That's why the idea of "protecting" the vulnerable (all 20 million of them) is nonsense. I doubt if all over 60s want to be "protected" for years anyway. Most of them probably want to feel that it's relatively safe (with masking and social distancing) to go out sometimes.

Hadn’t finished! If we could have protected the over 60’s better how the figures could be much lower now.

I’m going off,in a bit of a tangent here but have come across some interesting data on an NHS site. Up to the 16 December all deaths related to COVID up to the ages of 59 amount to 3470. Subtract those that had pre-existing conditions and the number becomes 377. Now obviously even that relatively small number is tragic but it does put into perspective the effects on the over 60’s. It certainly makes me wonder if the whole thing had been handled differently from the start and we could have orote

AGAA4,
"Most are not idiots. Just selfish self centred people, who don't give a toss for others."

Yes, but sometimes self centred behaviour is caused not by greed but by ignorance .

GrannyNanny thank you. I was wondering if you could get it twice so that confirms it. It sounds like they might need to change the vaccine each year like flu xxxx

I think you misunderstand me Lucretzia. I agree large numbers of the community can be protected by vaccination (so called herd immunity, a term which public health workers do not like) as in polio and measles vacc for example.

What I do not agree with is the term applied to letting the virus run wild, and causing illness and death to vast numbers of the population in the hope of achieving community immunity.

I have spent much of my career vaccinating thousands so am aware of what community immunity entails and how to achieve it.

Most are not idiots. Just selfish self centred people, who don't give a toss for others.

Don't forget there is also Long Covid. Horrible.

Unfortunately it is not the idiot superspreaders who will get ill and die, it is more likely to be the poor folk that they infect.

Greeneyedgirl

I agree MaizieD Herd immunity was originally about disease in animals and is certainly not relevant in modern society, when there is more compassion, care and respect for human life??

Of course it's relevant today. Measles being a prime example.

93% to 95% of a population must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and prevent an outbreak of measles.

www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/herd-immunity-how-does-it-work

The coronavirus is unlike the plagues of the past. Not only is coronavirus both dangerous and readily transmissible, modern travelling about is such that people mix much more than they did in the days of the black death and, latterly, tuberculosis.

The above explains why coronavirus is pandemic while TB which was endemic, and black death which was epidemic ,were geographically limited .

Besides the social conditions for its infectivity, the virus itself mutates more than did the causal lorganisms of black death and TB.