Thanks - I did not know this. And this is why CC can be such a treasure trove of info! (But the flu still isn’t as deadly as COVID 
)
And as @JBStillFlying said, “vaccination works”. Yes and thank goodness! I am sure some of it is me and comfort level, which is “expanding”. And my personal experiences about who I know and how they contracted COVID, and who they infected (and it makes me sad).
I sure wish more people would get vaccinated for their own safety and that of others.
It could be. Covid ran through an entirely unvaccinated population. It certainly hit and hurt the elderly harder than younger groups. That same population usually receives flu shots each year. Without those flu shots, the number of deaths from flu would be a lot larger.
There was a chart in our paper comparing covid deaths with other causes of death in the last 5 years. I was surprised that the number of accidental deaths, number of deaths from most diseases were up a little in 2020 (just slightly). The number of deaths from flu was down about 25%.
These two statements are contradictory, since the data states that the mRNA vaccine does not provide gene therapy.
About 40%-50% of the population get the flu vaccine, and its effectiveness is 40%-60%. So the number of deaths from flu are fewer, but likely about 1/2 or so what they would be without the flu (since the vaccine not only reduces the chance that a person would get sick, but also that they would transmit it)
So even without the flu vaccine, there would likely be only about 50,000-60,000 deaths from seasonal flu a year, versus the 600,000 already dead from COVID. Moreover, that is the number who are dead despite extensive mask wearing, quarantining, hand washing, social distancing, etc - all which have reduced the number of dead from seasonal flu to 600 this year.
Had people not been taking any more precautions than they normally do during the flu season, we likely would have millions dead from COVID, by now.
Hospital workers refusing the vaccine.
“What I don’t understand is how come 40% of my nurses who have worked with me in my COVID unit, where three patients die every day, they still say no,” he said.”
It is not just red necks and antivaxxers. They may not even be the majority of people not getting vaccinated.
My 20 YO is doing exactly that. He said that he is not against getting the vaccine, but wants it to have full approval and/or be out in the public (not trials) for a year. He said he will vaccinate by Dec 21. he is hoping for an exemption to remain in college. He is not anti-vax, and though he leans right, this is no political . He has ASD and does overthink things though. The biggest glitch is that only Pfizer and Moderna have asked for full approval and he said that the most likely one he would get would be the JnJ. Meanwhile I beg , plead, cry, and everything else. He keeps coming back that he is a healthy 20 yo that barely leaves the house , and the risks are low for him at this point. No arguing with something with ASD about harm to others. And yes, he will still mask . I am at my wits end, but unless I kick him out of the house, what other recourse do I have.
It means that medically vulnerable people (i.e. those who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, and those who do not gain good immunity from vaccination) are at increased risk when they go to medical care. Unfortunately, medically vulnerable people are more likely to need medical care (for various reasons) or already need more frequent medical care. This is similar to the situation at nursing homes where vaccine-refusing staff kept bringing in SARS-CoV-2 and causing outbreaks that made it difficult for residents to receive family visitors.
The reason for refusal among health care workers may have to do with lack of trust in their facility management: Why won't some health care workers get vaccinated? - Harvard Health . Pre-existing lack of trust should be obvious to the outside observer, since nurses at large facilities typically have unions that threaten strikes every time their contracts near their end dates.
Will you son get vaccinated if his college will not allow him back without it?
that is big question. He seems to think he will get the exemption, but if he doesnt at that point, not sure if he will cave.
I do understand his position, which is similar to many others. Not everyone is refusing to vaccinate, some are just “not quite yet”. I have a friend that was so grateful she got Covid in April, so that she has a bit more time to decide now. I also understand that if they (the hesitant) dont get vaccinated soon a variant can happen that would “ruin everything”. But even if the US reached the amount of vaccinated like Israel, a variant from another part of the world could cause a set back anyway.
My very reluctant daughter said she and her BF will get the vaccines when there is full FDA approval. I think she’s just looking for a way out of her “i’ll never get it” position. Hey, anything it takes.
If he does not and still refuses, will he then take a gap semester? Of course, if he then works in a relatively exposed situation like retail, he may be more likely to get the actual virus if the area has a high level of vaccine reluctance that prevents herd immunity, and social distancing and masking ends.
I think that there a good number who approached the vaccine very suspiciously, and are really surprised that it is both this effective and safe. It is likely difficult to go from “that is dangerous and scary” to “wow, I want that!”. For some people, the present data is enough, while some other will need an additional step.
Moreover, many of these health care workers are not trained doctors and nurses, but people whose training is personal support of patients - feeding, cleaning, dressing, etc. They are underpaid and treated badly, and their medical background is no deeper than the average person. So they have the “normal” hesitancy of a person towards a novel treatment, but also a deep suspicion of the management. This suspicion is usually justified, since the management has, in many cases, hid the threat that COVID and other infectious diseases posed to the workers, have likely not provided sufficient protective gear, and, in general, has demonstrated little or no interest in the welfare of the work force.
So it isn’t surprising that these workers would be suspicious of a novel treatment that their management is proposing, a treatment that they don’t really understand, and is also known to be new and untested. They are right to assume that their management would expose them to potentially harmful procedures if that would help management maintain income (or profit) levels.
If I were in their place, I would not trust the management either.
Indeed, nursing home workers refusing vaccination and then (unintentionally, but perhaps sometimes due to carelessness) bringing the virus in to cause outbreaks hits back at management, although the residents and their families who cannot visit due to the outbreaks are the collateral damage.
Any work that he would do, would likely not be in retail. And he almost would welcome getting the virus at this point, as he states that it will provide him with immunity for some time going forward in a natural way. he does not believe that if he got it, it would affect him as a healthy 20 year old. He does not understand or want to hear that some 20 year olds do get it badly enough.
I do think if push comes to shove, he will cave. He almost has to. I understand his points and others who feel that they want to wait, but society/scientists/government is apparently saying, that is the incorrect way of thinking , and only if everyone gets vaccinated will we ever get back to normal, until a variant comes along that renders the vaccine useless or another virus comes along. dont get me wrong, I got the vaccine due to age/risk of myself and H, versus if the vaccine caused me to have problems in the future. I follow the “rules”. But forcing people to take a vaccine that so far is not FDA approved without allowing them to wait is also not right. The family of the person who died from JnJ because of the Blood clots was part of the experiment. Now we know what to look for there, but who is to say that something 6 months from now becomes an issue for those who had Pfizer or Moderna. That is his argument. Its not never, but not right now.
Since your son doesn’t leave the house often and masks up when he does, he’s probably not at high risk of catching or transmitting Covid. He is also of age to make this decision on his own and the consequences if he doesn’t get an exemption will be logical ones: he’ll take a year off or get vaccinated. But it’ll be his decision either way and in situations like these even a person w/o ASD can dig in their heels if the subject is constantly revisited with begging, pleading, crying etc.
Maybe the Dec date is later than it needs to be. The 30000 people in the Moderna trial started getting their vaccines in late July. My daughter got hers in late August. Sharing that fact has made some of her clinic’s patients more receptive to getting vaccinated.
Per a recent article in Lancet: " Available data from 43 US states up to April, 2021, show that COVID-19 vaccination rates in White people were almost twice as high as rates in Hispanic and Black people, despite a higher proportion of White Republicans being unsure or unwilling when asked about taking a COVID-19 vaccine.Vaccine uptake disparities are not, therefore, fully explained by so-called vaccine hesitancy. There is an urgent need for government agencies to collect representative data to inform strategies to address disparities in vaccine uptake, such as data on vaccination rates disaggregated by ethnicity or race, on vaccine availability by location, and on more complex reasons for vaccine refusals, including previous negative experiences of interacting with government services and locations or timings of vaccination centres being inconvenient."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00938-7/fulltext
Also, we are a good 11 months out from those clinical trials and nearly six months out from the earliest mass distribution. Are there reports of long-term complications at this point? While EUA can sound concerning - it is a lower standard than full authorization - a case can be made for full authorization being unacceptably cautious, particularly in a pandemic. My guess is that there is enough data out there for those genuinely waiting on full authorization to begin to consider getting the vaccine. The fact that both Pfizer and Moderna are seeking full approval is a crucial signal as to likely safety. The other signal would be the huge number of top medical professionals - ie, physicians - who both got the vaccine and are getting their kids vaccinated. To cite an insensitive analogy, there was a survey conducted many years ago that found that only about 1/3 of oncologists would take chemo themselves for lung cancer. That was quite revealing at the time (although of course, those numbers are no longer valid). My point is that the medical professionals usually know what works and what doesn’t; what’s likely to provide horrible side effects and what isn’t. If they are opting for the Covid vaccine themselves and subjecting their own families to the same that’s not because they have to. It’s because they trust the vaccine.
We have never seen any vaccine show side effects after the first two months of administration. From Dr. Paul Offit:
In the history of vaccines, he noted, side effects have always appeared within two months of administration. “There are no long-term effects where you find that one year, two years, later your child or you develop some problem that wasn’t picked up initially,” Offit said. “It has never happened.”
And more:
But, especially where the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — available for longer than Johnson & Johnson doses — are concerned, we’re now way past the point where even very, very rare side effects should be visible.
The whole article is worth a read. Misinformation Remains Giant Hurdle for Vaccination Efforts
Another side effect, thankfully rare so far. But for those with younger boys receiving the vaccine worth knowing about.
The case report paper is here: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2021/06/02/peds.2021-052478.full.pdf
The authors do state that “The benefits of vaccination significantly exceed possible risks.”