Do you have friends who have declined to be vaccinated.........h ow do you deal with this (stay polite!)

Bluesky it’s really difficult decision. The family run hotel in Italy where we usually book to stay in Italy has closed because the father and daughter both died from Covid last year.
Who knows what is the right thing to do.

Adaunas you are right, between the devil and the deep blue sea.

I know being vaccinated is everyone's choice but my son had covid quite early on in March last year, now has long covid and was registered disabled in January as he is no longer fit to work. He received the appointment for his vaccination and said he wasn't going to get the vaccination, then swithered about it and finally told me he had got it. I know people can't be forced but if they'd had a relative who had been so ill they would have gone. I have had both vaccinations but the lack of knowledge of the long term affects is concerning, I used to be a pharmacy technician, but after seeing how ill my son was I took the decision that being vaccinated was better than not. Apart from long haul covid he has no underlying conditions and was fit and healthy until then.

I had the Pfizer vaccine but the 2nd one did have side effects, mainly not catching my breath, feeling listless etc. Lasted 2 weeks, on and off. I expected something as I have low immunity. But, I would have a 3rd booster in Autumn without batting an eyelid! Logic tells me, in our lifetime we've had so many immunisations, also given them to our tender babies, yet no one queried the harm or side effects that might present themselves later. It was our responsibility to do so and we did it. So is it our responsibility to help end this pandemic.

The possible side effects don’t worry me, they would be worth it, luckily I didn’t have any, but the reports of young people dying because of blood clots do, when they might have never caught the virus in the first place, or if they did, it’s usually a mild illness for them. So I agree with the countries in Europe that have reserved the AZ for the over 60 only.

"no one queried the harm or side effects that might present themselves later"

I query everything. And know lots of other people who have done so as well.

You have to remember that the number of people who have died (in the UK) is less than 1000th of 1% of the UK population and a lot of them may have died of some other ailment but just happened to get a positive (possibly a false positive) pcr result during the 28 days before dying. You really need to start and apply some perspective to this. Why do you think the governments never speak in terms of percentages? Because that would show how few have died and I'm not saying any one of those isn't tragic for their families. The Governments call it Collateral Damage.

What we need to look at is excess deaths - that is a comparison of deaths in the average of that month over several previous years.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending14may2021

effalump I have to remember that I got Covid, was hospitalised for twelve days, was treated with a cocktail of nine different drugs and treatments, and I’m lucky to still be here. I welcomed my invitation for vaccination because I don’t want to ever go through that again. I’m one of the lucky ones, I left hospital with bad scarring to my lungs, but my recent X-ray showed the scars have healed. My consultant told that they might heal but not definitely, so yes, I’m lucky. I also have not got Long Covid, although I left hospital in a very weakened condition and it took a couple of months to get back to normal.
So no, we shouldn’t remember that not so many people died of Covid compared to the population, we should remember it could happen to any one of us, and the vaccination is a wonderful way to prevent not only death, but what happened to me.
By the way, our NHS treated me wonderfully and I will be eternally grateful for their care.

I am glad you have made such a good recovery maddyone

No-one should underestimate the danger of covid 19 and its variants.

Thanks Varian.

thank you for speaking sense, and sharing about that scary time, Maddyone.
hope you are doing ok now.

Thank you welbeck I’m very good now thanks, and fully vaccinated. I just wish anti vaccine people understood how ill Covid can make people.