Vaccine reluctance & General COVID Discussion

No one is likely planning to be a super spreader, but therein is the problem. No one knows ahead of time. We only know vaccinations make it less likely to be a spreader and far less likely to have major issues if one does get Covid.

Using “their best information” is bogus. Where did they get the info from and what data supports it? The following is comedy, but also an extremely true look into how/why people believe things (without getting political or into Covid itself - it remains comedy).

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Was in NYC last week and while showing a vax card and DL to go inside a restaurant is a minor hassle, once inside it was comforting to know that everyone else inside was vaccinated too.

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“Retail establishments, including grocery stores and pharmacies, are not included in the ordinance.”

“Those who cannot be vaccinated for religious or health reasons must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test and proof of an exemption.”

This is the problem with misinformation. What is actually a pretty reasonable mandate becomes nobody can enter any indoor establishment without proof of vaccine, no exceptions.

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Here’s another NYT piece. I’m quoting some of it I’ve found more interesting, but there’s a lot more in the article dealing with many other facets of reluctance if anyone is interested. I quoted what I did because of how much these mandates appear to be helping. To me, that’s good news.

"reality has refuted dire predictions about how Americans would respond to vaccine mandates. In a poll in September, 72 percent of the unvaccinated said they would quit if forced to be vaccinated for work. There were news articles warning of mass resignations. When large employers, school districts, and hospital systems did finally mandate vaccines, people subject to mandates got vaccinated, overwhelmingly. After United Airlines mandated vaccines, there were only 232 holdouts among 67,000 employees. Among about 10,000 employees in state-operated health care facilities in North Carolina, only 16 were fired for noncompliance.

The remarkable success of vaccine mandates shows that for many, it is not firm ideological commitments that have kept everyone from getting vaccinated, and that the stubborn, unpersuadable holdouts may be much smaller than we imagine."

"It may well be that some of the unvaccinated are a bit like cats stuck in a tree. They’ve made bad decisions earlier and now may be frozen, part in fear, and unable to admit their initial hesitancy wasn’t a good idea, so they may come back with a version of how they are just doing “more research.”

"We know from research into human behavior but also just common sense that in such situations, face-saving can be crucial.

In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well. If all the unvaccinated truly believed that vaccines were that dangerous, more of them would have quit. These mandates may be making it possible for those people previously frozen in fear to cross the line, but in a face-saving manner."

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with no disrespect for your kid, I also live in SoCal and tend to prefer primary sources (many so-called journalists aren’t very good with nuance):

"Starting tonight, new vaccine requirements will go into effect at select establishments across L.A. County. The vaccination requirements applying to indoor portions of bars, lounges, nightclubs, breweries, wineries, and distilleries affect all patrons 12 or older and all employees.

There are also new requirements in effect for outdoor mega events, including large sport arenas and theme parks…"

Grocery stores and pharmacies are still covered under the original mask mandate. (no vax card required)

http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/phcommon/public/media/mediapubdetail.cfm?unit=media&ou=ph&prog=media&prid=3431

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That’s crazy talk! Responsibility? So old fashioned.

Sigh.

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If you weren’t going to debate covid mandates and restrictions, why did you bring them up? Seems like you only want to back out of the debate now because people are pointing out you implied/exaggerated what those restrictions and mandates actually do.

To me, exaggerations suggest you don’t think your argument is convincing so you have to dress it up, make it more dramatic - like the verbal equivalent of a push-up bra under clothing. It gets attention but is a deception, and you lose credibility when your sham is uncovered.

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At the risk of being the fact check police, the answer, at least in the US, is “none.” So let’s move on from debating a factual error please.

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This is particularly sad because his mother said he promised to get the vaccine as soon as he got settled in his dorm. He contracted Covid 2 or 3 days after arriving on campus.

I wish there were a way to know ahead of time medically exactly who won’t respond well to Covid. We know about co-morbidities, but we don’t have a clue when those without them also have a death-causing immune reaction. The kid believed he was in the vast majority for his age. Had he known he wasn’t I feel pretty certain he’d have opted for the vax prior to college.

No parent should have to bury their child (any reason). It’s really, really sad.

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Nobody wants your medical record. They just want to know if you’ve been vaccinated.

Over the summer, when it looked for about ten minutes like it might be safe to come out, every single conversation I had on re-entry to my building involved voluntary disclosures of vax status. People did it to reassure each other that they were safe to be around. That’s a sociable thing to do. Because we don’t want to play guessing games about a seriously damaging disease and whether you’re a danger to other people, if you’re not going to disclose voluntarily, we’ll gate things in this manner. It’s called public health. It’s why schools require a whole roster of vaccinations before you send your kid. It’s why entry to other countries requires vaccinations.

Meanwhile, I bet you’ve happily handed over biometric and personal health data to giant companies that are known bad actors for totally trivial and unnecessary things. If anything in your house that’s not alive recognizes your voice; if you wear a fitbit; if you use fingerprint or facial-recognition tech for using your phone; if you’ve got an IoT house with Nestlike thermostat, then I don’t know what you’re tutting about. You’re giving away much more health/biometric information than “vaxed or not” all the time.

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All these poor children. :cry:
You’d think that even if they are scared of the vaccines and would not have their kids “take the risk”, the parents would “sacrifice” and “take the risk” in order to protect the kids. Or at least one.
:cry: So many orphans who must be both devastated and furious (many orphans feel that their parents “abandonned” them, even if they know it’s irrational… except in this case, it’s like both parents committed suicide and did abandon them… so on top of bereavement they have to deal with that, too) :cry: :cry:

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Things have resolved, in a horrible, horrible way: hundreds and hundred and hundreds of people who would have lived, have died, leaving behind grieving families and, often, children.
“will resolve in a good way” was a rational way of thinking a year ago. Not when 700,000 have died.

Recently I was reading a graphic novel about an epidemic (nothing like covid - related to antibiotic resistance and intensive pig farming) and at some point the fictional TV announced “as many as 17,000 have died” and I just nodded to myself, “fiction, but…” I thought “ridiculous, 170 I would have bought 1,700 maybe, but 17,000, come on!!” … And then I remembered the enormity of the numbers for the coronavirus covid19, including numbers after the vaccines were discovered and offered, for free, to all. Numbers so big we cannot even comprehend them. It was like being slapped.

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Yeah. Here it is in some pretty stark terms:

That takes us to nine months ago. Still a lot of covid death after that. I’d call it too late for resolving in a good way. There’s ghastly and more ghastly. If you want to reel it in: vax mandates. And hope we don’t get a new mutation that’s good at evading vaccines.

This table doesn’t show disability and ill health from covid – those appear to be much larger numbers.

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That’s just in the USA! Not globally. Astounding numbers

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Looks like there is a significant uptick in othrt causes of death, too. Supports the theory that covid deaths were underreported, not that hospitals were mislabeling covid deaths as something else.

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Some could be indirectly COVID-19 related, such as someone without COVID-19 but with a heart attack, unintentional injury, or stroke unable to get into the hospital because it was clogged with COVID-19 patients.

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