The unvaccinated

Next week, for the 2nd time since it was allowed, I will be having a pub lunch with 2 ex colleagues, one of whom is a vaccine refuser. I’m not sure sure whether it’s down to conspiracy theories - possible - but he’s the sort of person who won’t even take paracetamol for a headache, or Lemsip for a bad cold, and hasn’t for years.

He lives alone and does enjoy his local pub, so I do wonder whether he’d have the vaccine if it was made a condition of entry.

fushia Just a small point ... there have always been rules that people have to follow for their own good and for the good of all - the wearing of seatbelts, driving on the correct side of the road, etc.

When I wanted to go to South Africa on holiday, I had to have a Yellow Fever Vaccination otherwise I couldn't go.

Well said, Anne2108. I agree with your post 100% The daily news always states xxxxx number of people reported with Covid today! how many of them have the symptoms of a mild cold, a bad cold, we don't know. The same with xxx number of people dying from covid within 28 days of a positive test, how many have died of cancer, heart disease, stroke etc even got hit by a bus just because you were tested positive sometime during the previous month you get included in the figures! Lets be told the facts

The tragic thing in America is that some people who only watch Fox News and the like are following their newscasters' endorsements for covid cures rather than be vaccinated. These 'cures' include a product designed to rid horses of worms which has caused a rise in poisonings of gullible humans in some states.

Anne2108

Newatthis. You do not take a vaccine to protect other people. You have a vaccine to protect yourself against a specific disease. If you have the yellow fever vaccine to travel to a country where the disease is rife, you are not having it to protect the local population but to protect yourself. Statistics obtained from the ONS under the FOI act show that on average, flu kills as many people each year as covid did in 2020, the difference being that the daily deaths from flu were never publicised like the constant barrage of fearmongering that people all over the world have been subjected to regarding covid. As I am sure you know, everyone taking this jab is currently part of experimental phase 3 trials, which are due to end in early 2023. According to official U.K. yellow card data, there have now been over 1500 deaths and nearly a million adverse effects from the vaccines. Furthermore, no one knows what the mid to long term effects will be so surely we should be questioning the government’s enthusiasm for the mass vaccination of our children and young people when their risk of catching or dying from covid is virtually non existent.

According to official U.K. yellow card data, there have now been over 1500 deaths and nearly a million adverse effects from the vaccines.

Wee bit of an exaggeration in Anne2108's post; 2 deaths and 350,000 yellow carded adverse events. (One of them was me; my INR peaked for 2 days and came down again. Could have been due to eating chick peas. No, really.)

I have been a silent member on gransnet for a long time. Always reading the threads...never joining in. Very often... more times than not getting hot under the collar at some of the questions posed and the replies. Today, I can't stay silent after reading Newatthis and The Unvaccinated. I am so sad at what has become of the human race and our tolerance towards our fellow men and women. I do not wish to live in a police state where our every move is dictated by government or those who think they know better. What has happened to freedom of choice, if we dictate that people must be vaccinated or be refused entry or participation in life. Please don't tell me "we are in a pandemic" I know that as well as the next person. What many are suggesting will be a police state. Take a look at the credit system people are enforced to endure in China. Or the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Do you want that for your children and grandchildren? Don't you want them to have the freedom we had growing up? I certainly want mine too. We have spent the last 18 months fighting this pandemic and now people want to take away our choices in life. God help us. By the way I am double vaccinated but will seriously weigh up whether I wish to have a booster. I hope the people of France realise what is happening to them. Our parents and grandparents fought hard for our freedom don't let that be lost.

Last week, I met for lunch with a friend who’d come, on the bus, fifty miles to the city for shopping, and wanted to meet up. I knew from previous telephone conversations that she might not take the vaccine. As it turned out, she hasn’t, as she doesn’t
‘ trust ‘ it. Her partner was in two minds, but his son, who’s a doctor persuaded him to have it, so they are living side by side, one vaccinated, and the other not. Some people have told me they wouldn’t have lunched with her, but I wasn’t certain until we met whether or not she’d had it. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to refuse to see her. I probably am close to other unvaccinated people, without knowing, often enough. The restaurant certainly didn’t ask.

A vaccination certificate has been mandatory or is still so in most European countries, but will be phased out as soon as the majority of the poplulation of any country has been vaccinated.

No one is forcing vaccination on anybody else. We who believe it stupid and irresponsible to not have the vaccinations have been vaccinated. The rest must put up with restricted access to many public events and possibly to friends dropping them to.

It is to be hoped that some who are against vaccination will change their minds about it, but if they don't, they don't. It is their choice after all.

Markoni40

I don't understand the point. Vaccinated people can get and transmit Covid, so what is the difference... also how do we explain that Israel where almost all adults were vaccinated is now in serious wave 4 which is at the level of their worst ever peak? and more people hospitalized are vaccinated (in %, not absolute numbers). I think we need to admin that vaccines do not work against Delta variant.

Vaccines do work against the Delta variant. It is wrong to say otherwise.

www.healtheuropa.eu/covid-19-vaccines-are-still-effective-against-delta-variant-study-confirms/110553/

The level of infections is high in Israel but the level of serious illness and death is about 1/4 of what it would be if there was no vaccination.

The reason that a high percentage of people in hospital have been vaccinated is that a high percentage of people have been vaccinated ; if 100% of people had been vaccinated 100% of people in hospital would have been vaccinated. But there would be far fewer people in hospital.

Anne2108

Newatthis. You do not take a vaccine to protect other people. You have a vaccine to protect yourself against a specific disease. If you have the yellow fever vaccine to travel to a country where the disease is rife, you are not having it to protect the local population but to protect yourself. Statistics obtained from the ONS under the FOI act show that on average, flu kills as many people each year as covid did in 2020, the difference being that the daily deaths from flu were never publicised like the constant barrage of fearmongering that people all over the world have been subjected to regarding covid. As I am sure you know, everyone taking this jab is currently part of experimental phase 3 trials, which are due to end in early 2023. According to official U.K. yellow card data, there have now been over 1500 deaths and nearly a million adverse effects from the vaccines. Furthermore, no one knows what the mid to long term effects will be so surely we should be questioning the government’s enthusiasm for the mass vaccination of our children and young people when their risk of catching or dying from covid is virtually non existent.

False information here. The number given of 1550 is the number of people who died soon after their vaccine jab. Not the same as having died because they had the jab. I could well have died within 24 hours of having the jab because I am living on bonus time already.

There is of course also a degree of uncertainty about the numbers killed by Covid but I know which chance I would take and it isn’t to risk contracting Covid/Long Covid.

It makes me laugh that the vaccine is described as a ‘trial’ and ‘experimental’. Some trial involving billions of people!

I must confess to feeling very confused about it all now. I am not anti vax and was pleased to get both of my jabs, only to find that it doesn't prevent catching it again (I had covid pretty badly in December, with recurring problems since). Reading the examples on here, hopefully rare, that double jabbed people are catching covid and it being worse than when they had covid the first time round. Which makes me now wonder why I bothered.
Also in response to whether employers should rethink their sickness policies, that would be interesting. In the workplace I was at prior to retirement, it was expected you would drag yourself in, no matter how ill you were, and no matter how many other people caught what you had. If you had a cumulation of sickness, you were disciplined for absence from work, even if the total was very low. This was the civil service, a government department. I wonder now whether they will have a rethink, given that covid reinfection can present as just sniffles?
As to the availability of lateral flow tests, I was in our local pharmacy yesterday collecting meds for my husband and heard a conversation between a customer and the staff member at the counter. The elderly customer asked for some lateral flow test kits. He was told they only had 2 left and was asked what he wanted them for. His reply was so that he could test before visiting his wife in a care home, and the staff member then handed them to him. I wonder what circumstances would lead to a refusal, and what happens for the next customer who needs any, but none are available and can't do the rounds of other pharmacies to get the kits?

Coyoacan 'we can still get ill and be contagious but have a better chance of surviving' does not equal 'no threat'.

My partner’s youngest son, aged 30, refuses to be vaccinated as he “ doesn’t t believe in it”He doesn’t recognise that he has never had polio, smallpox, etc as he was vaccinated!!
He was supposed to isolate recently when he was pinged! But no! He went to a large football match and drinking in Manchester. Consequently, I refuse to meet up with him anywhere but in open spaces . I have no idea who he and girlfriend have been in close proximity with?‍♀️
Other two sons and wives have had jabs as has my daughter.
As a 71 year old and 67 year old, I think we have the right to say where we meet.

Saw this on another site.

How on earth do you think people with health concerns will not be mixing. I work with someone who cant be vaccinated because of health issues, she must be in contact with 30 people per day for work alone. I am really worried about the increased authoritarism as well. Which employees do you think firms will pick of they have a choice between vaccinated and those who cant be.

Only this morning read that the Euro football in London produced overseas 3,000 Covid cases and that was with all spectator's having a test before the match. Just think how many they infected. Those who for health reasons cannot be vaccinated will be exempt and of course they will run the risk of being severely ill if catching the virus. Surely they will not be mixing with the general public, at least if they have any sense they won't. Otherwise, just to protect individuals, conserve health resources and people's livelihoods people should be vaccinated

GilT57, I hope I won’t be her ITU clinician when she’s fighting for her life and has more than likely passed it on to others. FFS everyone, take the vaccine!!

I'm vaccinated, but I'll be damned if I ever show a vaccine passport to get in anywhere. These vaccines do have some nasty side-effects in some people, so everyone should have the right to decide if they take it or not. Being vaccinated, we can still get ill and be contagious but have a better chance of surviving than the unvaccinated. So the from the unvaccinated are no threat to me or mine.

I also don't like this rising authoritarianism that people are so keen on.

Newatthis. You do not take a vaccine to protect other people. You have a vaccine to protect yourself against a specific disease. If you have the yellow fever vaccine to travel to a country where the disease is rife, you are not having it to protect the local population but to protect yourself. Statistics obtained from the ONS under the FOI act show that on average, flu kills as many people each year as covid did in 2020, the difference being that the daily deaths from flu were never publicised like the constant barrage of fearmongering that people all over the world have been subjected to regarding covid. As I am sure you know, everyone taking this jab is currently part of experimental phase 3 trials, which are due to end in early 2023. According to official U.K. yellow card data, there have now been over 1500 deaths and nearly a million adverse effects from the vaccines. Furthermore, no one knows what the mid to long term effects will be so surely we should be questioning the government’s enthusiasm for the mass vaccination of our children and young people when their risk of catching or dying from covid is virtually non existent.

I'm double vaccinated along with a lot of my friends, but yet I still have a few who are totally against it. They are the ones who go on social media, shouting about not trusting the vaccine, the government, etc. My other friends who got their jabs don't even comment, there is no point arguing with them, they get so angry saying they don't like being told what to do, some go into full rants. We now have the worst infection rate in the UK, 1 in 55, and they are now cancelling cancer operations again cos Covid patients are taking up the ICU beds. Can they not see this is not right.

Paperbackwriter

I see the arch-Covid denier, the guy from the band Right Said Fred, has been in hospital for several days with Covid. He's been very vocal about Covid not existing/being anti-vax. He dismisses his illness as 'a slight infection'. Sure - a 'mild' one that needs days in hospital on oxygen?

Yes, he seems to be one of those people who would rather die (literally) than say those three little words: I WAS WRONG.

As far as I understand it, the argument seems to be that if you're vaccinated you have far less chance of catching the vrius (and therefore far less chance of passing it on to someone-else) as well as a vastly reduced chance of becoming very ill yourself (and thereby needing to be hospitalised etc). Also, the more severely ill you are, the more likely it is that you'll be left with long term damage to your organs, such as lungs or heart. Yes, it's freedom of choice if you choose not to get the vaccine (as opposed to not being able to) but then it's freedom of choice for businesses to refuse you entry, countries to say you can't visit, and friends/family to refuse to see you/ be around you. It can't be one-sided. It's a choice and we accept the consequences of it, whatever we choose. We can't demand our own right to choose but deny others the same.

I don't understand the point. Vaccinated people can get and transmit Covid, so what is the difference... also how do we explain that Israel where almost all adults were vaccinated is now in serious wave 4 which is at the level of their worst ever peak? and more people hospitalized are vaccinated (in %, not absolute numbers). I think we need to admin that vaccines do not work against Delta variant.

The thing that's worrying me at the moment is something that was said on the news .refugees are begin offered covid vaccine surely they must be vaccinated against covid,polio and all the other diseases that we are protected against there should not be an option

Human rights seems to be the main excuse, but has anyone ever considered the human rights of those who have been vaccinated. Or the innocent who always get overlooked?