I think it’s dawned on me what one of the major problems is.
People think that vaccination programs are about saving individuals, therefore they think as an individual they have the right to opt out. But they aren’t about saving lots of individuals, they are about saving one large group. I know that sounds like petty semantics, but it isn’t, bear with me.
The trouble with viruses is that they mutate. But in order to be able to mutate they must spread and have a series of hosts. So in order for any vaccination program to work it must have an extremely high take up before a new mutation can really take hold. If only 50% of a group gets vaccinated, the virus is free to spread and mutate amongst the unvaccinated 50%. In due course the virus is likely to mutate to a new form that the vaccine is not effective against, and so the vaccination program fails.
We don’t really seem to talk about public health (and by this I mean the health of the public at large, not of individuals) in terms of group health when we talk about disease. We understand it when we talk about sanitation, sewers, food hygiene etc, but not viruses. I’m not sure the NHS understands this either. Now you can get PrEP meds on the NHS which means an individual can probably dodge HIV when they have unprotected sex. But what about all the other STDs you can get from unprotected sex that PrEP doesn’t prevent? Will PrEP drugs contribute to conditions where syphilis and gonorrhoea viruses can spread and mutate into even more serious diseases? I don’t know. I just put it out there. But I fear it does, and I’m certain in this instance individual health and avoidance of one disease is being prioritised over public health and the prevention of multiple diseases..
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Sat 18 Sep 2021, 23:52,
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Well, the march was in Leeds.
Home of super gonorrhoea.
From people I know who haven't had the vaccine (and who aren't QAnon nutters), I'd agree that it does seem to be about viewing things as an individual rather than seeing their place in the bigger picture. That, and the sheer amount of disinformation that I've never seen any official attempt to combat.
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monkeon schmonkeon, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 0:07,
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If there is such a thing as society, we need to talk about it and what that means, and end this fetish of the individual.
But I fear the cult of the individual has fully taken hold, and it’s a very bad thing for society.
I had these thoughts when an old, good friend who has been double jabbed, but only so he could travel, expressed sympathy for people who are anti getting jabbed. He’s not an anti vaxer, he knows vaccines work, he just thinks people should be free to opt out. I think he just doesn’t get the problem a mutated virus presents. It’s very sad. He’s a mate though, so what can you do?
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 0:16,
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^this^
and ^^this^^
I've a friend who subscribes to the "not enough vaccine testing to prove they're safe" school, ignoring the well documented risks of not having the vaccine. What's really bugging me is that we've been bumbling along at an R number of almost exactly 1 for several weeks, so even some minor changes that reduce infection rate by even a small amount could have a massive effect, but I can see no indication of any attempt at this. If anything the opposite is happening.
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tarka_dall Like normal dall, only a bit more spicy, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 8:01,
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What worries me now is that we're [our government, anyway] planning boosters jabs
- while the rest of the world has hardly started their first jabs.
If there are going to be pockets of population around the world who have no immunity, then there are going to be more new variants.
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Invisible Wizard - 13th Level Scrote, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 12:02,
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I agree, up to a point.
The fact that no one is discussing, because of sentimentality replacing rationality, is just who Covid is killing. Deaths exclusively in numbers get headlines, so that’s what’s focussed on. But the unpalatable truth is it’s killing geriatrics and the obese. The media is obsessed with statistical outliers, but in the UK the average age of a Covid attributed death is 83. No one is talking about this. It never even gets a mention. Our approach to Covid has never been utilitarian, and people need to understand and accept that humans cannot expect to live forever. Seriously, 83.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 12:47,
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Yeah, oldies, the obese
- and asthmatics like me, and diabetics, like my mate.
You're not wrong, but from where I'm standing at least, it's not acceptable to throw us under the bus.
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Invisible Wizard - 13th Level Scrote, Sun 19 Sep 2021, 21:59,
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