New South African variant.

[Kremmen]

I've been out for a walk and a nosey and people entering shops and on buses is about 50% compliance.

As posted, how difficult is it to wear a mask rather than this high and mighty mob who just don't care about others.

[Jayt43]

Just to weigh in on the subject...

My bestest mate (a highly intelligent chartered surveyor by trade) steadfastly refuses to get vaccinated. Moreover his stance has influenced his wife and children to not get vaccinated either.

As an extremely fit fifty year old, he maintains that his chances of becoming seriously ill and dying are very low indeed. And he compared the idea of compulsory vaccination in countries like Austria as being an ominous sign of a potential return to fascism...

There are parallels between his thinking and the death of the 42-year old fitness fanatic mentioned here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine

What is most interesting is the link to the research article (ongoing) which outlines that genetics may also play a part in how a person's body reacts to Covid infection:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01827-w

Potentially, extremely fit people may still succumb to the virus because of genomic differences - so it may not just be down to age, underlying health conditions and the amount of virus exposure.

The genome joker - which may dramatically increase / decrease our susceptibility to Covid-19 - is not easily known to any of us. Therefore, if this risk is also part of the equation, the logic to being vaccinated and wearing a mask (as a social responsibility to lessen transmission to others) becomes overwhelming.

In comparison to the genome joker, I'd always take my chances with the small risk of adverse serious side effects / death (because of embolism / myocarditis etc) associated with vaccination.

[Jayt43]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

[richardfrost]

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

It is. What we are seeng playing out is Science and the Scientific Method, vs Dr. Google and the social media method. I know where my trust is placed. Not in governments, but in Science.

[ColinB]

My bestest mate (a highly intelligent chartered surveyor by trade) steadfastly refuses to get vaccinated. Moreover his stance has influenced his wife and children to not get vaccinated either.

As an extremely fit fifty year old, he maintains that his chances of becoming seriously ill and dying are very low indeed. And he compared the idea of compulsory vaccination in countries like Austria as being an ominous sign of a potential return to fascism...

There are parallels between his thinking and the death of the 42-year old fitness fanatic mentioned here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine

There was a short but powerful piece in last weekends Sunday Times by Dr Rachael Clarke (unfortunately behind a paywall so can't link to it). She's a critical care expert in a busy hospital, and she described eloquently how her ICU beds had filled up with the unvaccinated, almost all of whom thought like your pal but recanted and pleaded to be vaccinated when it was too late. That didn't affect the way she was caring for them, but the despair in her words about the idiocy of their "it won't get me" attitude was very clear. And the beds occupied by them will not be available for you or I if we need them.

[Kremmen]

Over the last couple of years, where allowed/released, there have been a small number of videos of people in ICU suffereing from severe breathing problems put down to Covid.

No other recent illness I've heard of causes these symptoms.

These videos are a reminder how bad this can be if you are hit hard.

Why some are refusing to potentially protect themselves beats me.

[madasafish]

My bestest mate (a highly intelligent chartered surveyor by trade) steadfastly refuses to get vaccinated. Moreover his stance has influenced his wife and children to not get vaccinated either.

As an extremely fit fifty year old, he maintains that his chances of becoming seriously ill and dying are very low indeed. And he compared the idea of compulsory vaccination in countries like Austria as being an ominous sign of a potential return to fascism...

There are parallels between his thinking and the death of the 42-year old fitness fanatic mentioned here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine

There was a short but powerful piece in last weekends Sunday Times by Dr Rachael Clarke (unfortunately behind a paywall so can't link to it). She's a critical care expert in a busy hospital, and she described eloquently how her ICU beds had filled up with the unvaccinated, almost all of whom thought like your pal but recanted and pleaded to be vaccinated when it was too late. That didn't affect the way she was caring for them, but the despair in her words about the idiocy of their "it won't get me" attitude was very clear. And the beds occupied by them will not be available for you or I if we need them.

Abstract:
"She is young, ashen and fighting for her life, and all I can offer is morphine. Recent chemotherapy has sent her blood count crashing. The drugs that could cure her breast cancer are so toxic to her body that even an innocuous infection could be fatal. As she flinches from the pain of taking a breath, I know that her raw, inflamed lung is scraping against the wall of her chest, making each gasp an ordeal.

Ellen, in her mid-thirties and with everything to live for, trusts her doctors to administer an antibiotic so potent that it is nicknamed Domestos; painkillers ten times more potent than opium; and chemotherapy literally designed to kill living human cells, a cytotoxic poison. Yet she will not, under any circumstances, countenance having a Covid vaccine

Of the Covid patients treated in intensive care in recent months, the majority — nearly 75 per cent according to the latest data — have chosen not to be vaccinated. As Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, put it this week: “This ongoing horror, which is taking place across ICUs in Britain, is now largely restricted to unvaccinated people.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-suppress-a-howl-of-disbelief-she-would-rather-die-than-get-a-covid-vaccine-n2l8r2wcj

[richardfrost]

Powerful reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine

Extracts...

John wasn’t entirely wrong. He was extremely unlikely to die from Covid, as a physically fit 42-year-old with no underlying conditions. The Covid mortality rate for a 40-year-old with no underlying health conditions is about one in every 1,490 people infected.

But his calculus when it came to understanding the risk-to-benefit ratio of Covid vaccination was off. If infected, someone who is unvaccinated is 32 times more likely to die of Covid than someone who has been vaccinated. While vaccination carries a risk of side-effects, this risk is far smaller than the risk of being unvaccinated during a pandemic. Out of 46.3 million fully vaccinated people in the UK, 77 have died of blood clots thought to be related to a Covid vaccine.

“There is a huge asymmetry with risk,” says Dr Tom Stafford, a psychology lecturer at the University of Sheffield. “If you can get away with things that are low probability, you don’t know how dangerous they are until it’s too late.” Stafford uses the example of driving without a seatbelt: most of the time, you will be absolutely fine. But the one time you are in an accident, things might get very bad very quickly.

“It’s the same with the vaccine,” says Stafford. “It’s a low-probability event that you will get the virus and need hospitalisation. But if you do, then the vaccine shows its benefit.”

Active links for sources in the Guardian article linked above.

[Jocko]

Of the 34,500 daily infections, if only 1 in 1,490 fit, healthy, younger people die that still works out at 23 deaths. Almost 5 times the number who die on our roads every day.

[embee]

I know someone working in the French geriatric care system (they are French). There is a vaccine reluctance in France for various reasons, historical and ethnic culture of French Africans etc.
They (the carer) are convinced that the vaccine practices since the 1950s have resulted in greatly increased dementia cases. When you look into it, the articles they have been reading tend to confuse correlation and causation. They tend not to actually analyse the simple fact that more people are living much longer and so are likely to develop dementia, the fact that they were vaccinated as children in the 1950/60s just meant that more of them have survived this long and didn't die of measles etc. Also 50 or 60yrs ago a lot of folk died with dementia but it was not specifically diagnosed and recorded, or was put down to "eccentricity".
They have pointed me to various articles and lectures on youtube for example, and they almost always originate in an American religious background, some of them are pure charlatans and cite clear falsehoods, others may be well intentioned.

No amount of discussion nor reasoning will change their opinions and views regarding vaccination, no point even trying.

[culzean]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

The Wuhan lab was collecting, storing and experimenting on Bat coronavirus to increase its potency ( referred to as 'gain of function' ),  now it seems American money was involved .. the truth will come out eventually.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

[Jayt43]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

The Wuhan lab was collecting, storing and experimenting on Bat coronavirus to increase its potency ( referred to as 'gain of function' ),  now it seems American money was involved .. the truth will come out eventually.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

With all due respect that's not the point you made in your Pfizer post...

[JimSh]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

The Wuhan lab was collecting, storing and experimenting on Bat coronavirus to increase its potency ( referred to as 'gain of function' ),  now it seems American money was involved .. the truth will come out eventually.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

Thanks for posting your source this time.
The new York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
"The Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and conservatism bias. In 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review stated that the "New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem—a force for evil.""

The rest of the Wikipedia entry is equally damning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post

See "Content, coverage, and controversies"

[culzean]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

The Wuhan lab was collecting, storing and experimenting on Bat coronavirus to increase its potency ( referred to as 'gain of function' ),  now it seems American money was involved .. the truth will come out eventually.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

With all due respect that's not the point you made in your Pfizer post...

This is all a lot more complicated than you realise at the moment...... watch this space, Fizzer will be implicated pretty soon.

[Jayt43]

Would not surprise me to find out that Pfizer were funding Wuhan lab to make a virus that they were already working on a vaccine for - loadsa money.....

This comment alone makes me realise why arguing a case (even with supporting scientific evidence) is futile...

The Wuhan lab was collecting, storing and experimenting on Bat coronavirus to increase its potency ( referred to as 'gain of function' ),  now it seems American money was involved .. the truth will come out eventually.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

With all due respect that's not the point you made in your Pfizer post...

This is all a lot more complicated than you realise at the moment...... watch this space, Fizzer will be implicated pretty soon.

Following my vaccination I realised that, if I stand close to a microwave oven, it starts to glow and spark inside. I've also developed a strange attraction to Bill Gates - he's a dandy.

After researching online, it dawned on me that side-effects Piers Corbyn and others have talked about are actually true! And it's far more sinister than you realise at the moment....watch this space!

In the meantime the kids are happy, as I've been doubling up as a fridge magnet for all their school drawings!!