I urge everyone, and especially the reluctant vaxxers, to watch this video report by Clive Myrie. It puts a lot of things into perspective and destroys a few myths:-

[Link]

Co-incidentally I was able to watch a presentation yesterday given by the RCN lead on countering anti-vaccination misinformation. Much of what was said chimed with many of the points I have already made, and are reflected in the above video.

However, one thing was new to me. According to the WHO the biggest potential contributor to better health, and less early mortality, around the world, is the provision of safe drinking water.

The second is to ensure that those who can be vaccinated, are vaccinated. Not to protect them as individuals but mainly to establish herd immunity in which the viruses can no longer do damage.

Which is why those who refuse are not just exercising a personal choice. They are failing the rest of us through their selfishness.

I do agree that through various points of this pandemic and its variants, it can reasonably be said that it's a bad choice for yourself and others not to get vaccinated. We're so far down the road now though, that we'd benefit from a bit of a reset and to put realism ahead of preference. The majority of people have been vaccinated and will have decent protection through that. The vast majority of unvaccinated (as well as many or not most vaccinated) will have also encountered covid at this point too. Therefore, trying to persuade those who haven't bothered or feeling that we have to find ways to make them appears to be a largely pointless endevour at this point that is unlikely to change the course of the pandemic in any meaningful way.

I agree that it's important to clearly state the importance of getting vaccinated (especially to those who may feel a false sense of security as the numbers decrease but may still be an elevated risk compared to most - elderly, those with immunity issues, obese..) but we should also be realistic as the situation improves over time. As in, we're clearly not going to be injecting university students forever more and the like, and at this point we should probably have more thought to the impact of businesses as the vaccination status of individuals. We've skewed heavily towards the health of (largely) the elderly. As a society, we seem much less keen on factoring in the future of the young.

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It always get me when they do a tour of intensive care units. Even now with the vast majority vaccinated there's always a starkly disproportionate number of unvaccinated in there. What prize prats many of them must end up feeling like to be on deaths door due to something that would've likely taken them 10 seconds effort to avoid. 'Me' mentality.

Edited by BlueJay (25 Jan 2022 3.04pm)

Did you watch the video I referenced and hear the regret from the unvaccinated guy on a ventilator, and the relief in his voice when it was finally removed. The covid ward they were in had far fewer cases than this time last year but all that are there appeared to be unvaccinated.

Then there was the young guy who nearly died from it who is suffering from long covid and doesn't think he will ever be fit enough to return to his previous job.

It ought to be enough to convince the most stubborn, but I bet they will find other excuses.

Edited by Wisbech Eagle (25 Jan 2022 3.15pm)

I certainly agree that we need to need to prepare ourselves for the future, since it can't be denied that we were well and truly unprepared for this, and what was bad could've easily have been a much worse virus. While I'm not really convinced that concentrating on the hold outs will change much 'for society as a whole' at this point (in that I think a combo of vaccination and natural infection over the last couple of years has put a spanner in the works of the virus), on the science front, with mRNA vaccine success and other treatments, we've likely made good headway on that front (with treatments for various conditions really).

I certainly agree that disinformation, or exclusively contrarian style takes about vaccination fail to recognise that it's done a hell of a lot of good and may and is far, far more likely to cause people to make decisions that are detrimental to their health than having the vaccine could ever do.

Historically, there never seems to be more than one pandemic in any single person's lifetime.