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Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control.
It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly.
This is not a politics thread! You are allowed to post information regarding politics if it's related to the coronavirus, but do NOT discuss politics in here.
Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
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Northern Ireland27272 Posts
What’s the seemingly common obsession with Bill Gates in particular?
I’d rather not ‘research’ this much as I’m sure my brain would melt, but someone like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos are active in running big tech giants and seem far more obvious candidates to attract the ire of the conspiratorially minded
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On January 01 2022 00:37 WombaT wrote:
What’s the seemingly common obsession with Bill Gates in particular?
I’d rather not ‘research’ this much as I’m sure my brain would melt, but someone like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos are active in running big tech giants and seem far more obvious candidates to attract the ire of the conspiratorially minded
Bill Gates has done a lot of work in Africa on curing diseases including vaccines and even some work on trying to develop an injectable ink that could help track a person’s vaccine status through war torn areas. That’s where the conspiracy that they’re really injecting computer chips to track people comes from.
He also had been predicting and warning of a pandemic that would someday happen. So people accuse him of starting it.
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Northern Ireland27272 Posts
On January 01 2022 01:19 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2022 00:37 WombaT wrote:
What’s the seemingly common obsession with Bill Gates in particular?
I’d rather not ‘research’ this much as I’m sure my brain would melt, but someone like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos are active in running big tech giants and seem far more obvious candidates to attract the ire of the conspiratorially minded Bill Gates has done a lot of work in Africa on curing diseases including vaccines and even some work on trying to develop an injectable ink that could help track a person’s vaccine status through war torn areas. That’s where the conspiracy that they’re really injecting computer chips to track people comes from. He also had been predicting and warning of a pandemic that would someday happen. So people accuse him of starting it.
But Facebook does track habits and sells people’s data etc… Nvm I’m making the mistake of trying to rationally unpack the irrational aren’t I?
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On January 01 2022 01:19 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2022 00:37 WombaT wrote:
What’s the seemingly common obsession with Bill Gates in particular?
I’d rather not ‘research’ this much as I’m sure my brain would melt, but someone like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos are active in running big tech giants and seem far more obvious candidates to attract the ire of the conspiratorially minded Bill Gates has done a lot of work in Africa on curing diseases including vaccines and even some work on trying to develop an injectable ink that could help track a person’s vaccine status through war torn areas. That’s where the conspiracy that they’re really injecting computer chips to track people comes from. He also had been predicting and warning of a pandemic that would someday happen. So people accuse him of starting it.
He also said he'd like to reduce the world's population through vaccination (among other things) by decreasing child mortality and improving life expectancy. The crazies took it literally and think he wants to kill people with vaccines...
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On January 01 2022 00:37 WombaT wrote:
What’s the seemingly common obsession with Bill Gates in particular?
I’d rather not ‘research’ this much as I’m sure my brain would melt, but someone like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos are active in running big tech giants and seem far more obvious candidates to attract the ire of the conspiratorially minded
Like the guy or don't like the guy, you have to admit he has played a pretty huge part in the rollout of the vaccines.Surprised to see more on the left not attacking him more due to his obsession with maintaining IP rights for vaccines and medicines, drastically slowing the rollout in poorer countries..Follow the money.
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/
Maintaining his steadfast commitment to intellectual property rights, Gates pushed for a plan that would permit companies to hold exclusive rights to lifesaving medicines, no matter how much they benefited from public funding. Given the enormous influence Gates has in the global public health world, his vision ultimately won out in the Covax program—which enshrines monopoly patent rights and relies on the charitable whims of rich countries and pharmaceutical giants to provide vaccines to most of the world. A chorus of support from pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration didn’t hurt.
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On December 31 2021 21:53 RKC wrote:
I don't know any anti-vaxxer personally. But it's not puzzling at all how their minds could potentially operate.
Perhaps they feel the virus is nothing exeptionally unusual and will eventually infect enough people for herd immunity to be reached (and vaccination hinders this natural process of evolution). Perhaps they accept that the virus is an anomaly but are prepared to accept this risk as being part of life and death.
The extreme ones believe in some tin-pot government conspiracy or cosmic forces at play. But most likely they are the minority amongst the entire anti-vax community.
I've heard of a story from a friend (purely hearsay) of a professional, intelligent and elderly person who died from COVID. Not vaccinated. Till the very end, on the hospital bed, the person remained in good spirits that he would overcome the virus. In denial until death. Sad.
Of course I share many of your frustration against these misguided folks. But I don't harbour any contempt for them, but more of pity. Maybe if we try to understand their mindset more, we can come up with a better governmental policy that could nudge them towards vaccination. And if we find out that their beliefs are really irrational, then governments can justify taking a harder stance against them (mandatory isolation, denial of health benefits, etc).
What that puzzles me more is why governments are on one hand pushing hard the message that "no one is safe until everyone is vaccinated" but on the other hand then stopped short of going harder against the unvaccinated. Maybe politics get in the way. But a middle-ground approach is bound to leave some skeptics unpersuaded.
In short, I'm not really surprised why some people remain as anti-vaxxers, and why governments find it difficult to convert them.
While I dont think I am anti-vaxxer (I just dont care if others get vaccinated, or not, it is up to them) I didnt however get vaccinated and I am not planning to get vaccine.
Before people jump on me: yes Covid exists, yes I put mask on when required and I do self isolate when needed.
Thing with above is that they are just minor annoyances, which I can live with.
Vaccines though:
First of all - I knew Covid will wash over me, I was sick plenty as a kid and now I am reaping benefits of it, I dont even remember when last time I had viral infection with some serious symptoms. In case of Covid I like sneezed twice and felt a bit off for 1 day. Didnt even bother to take time off from work (I work from home btw). So it is pretty much "if is not broken, dont fix it" situation.
The point at which I knew I wont get vaccinated was when it turned out that every Vaccine producer wanted legal immunity (I mean like seriously what the ..., law is cool concept, but it shouldnt apply to me??, how did anyone agreed to that, how is that even actually legal?). I am sorry, but if you manufactured something and want to inject me with it, you will take responsibility, or you can inject yourself.
Then it is a case of:
where apropriate insert "millions vaccinated later"
You want get sick
You want be contagious
You want have heavy symptoms
You want have to be hospitalized
You want die
You may die, but the risk is smaller
If that doesnt prove that they didnt really knew what vaccine actually do, at the time when they started vaccinate people then I dont know what does.
Nobody (unless they have time machine) knows what long term effects of vaccines are. Yes we also dont know what long term effects of Covid are, but vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting Covid, so basically if you get vaccine you changing 1 unknown for 2. When it comes to my health I'll rather stick with 1 unknown.
As for me needing tinfoil hat - if believing that for large business, primary goal is to make money (look at Pfizzer profit) and everything else is secondary, makes me crazy, then yes I probably need one.
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On January 02 2022 02:26 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2022 00:42 Razyda wrote:On December 31 2021 21:53 RKC wrote:
I don't know any anti-vaxxer personally. But it's not puzzling at all how their minds could potentially operate.
Perhaps they feel the virus is nothing exeptionally unusual and will eventually infect enough people for herd immunity to be reached (and vaccination hinders this natural process of evolution). Perhaps they accept that the virus is an anomaly but are prepared to accept this risk as being part of life and death.
The extreme ones believe in some tin-pot government conspiracy or cosmic forces at play. But most likely they are the minority amongst the entire anti-vax community.
I've heard of a story from a friend (purely hearsay) of a professional, intelligent and elderly person who died from COVID. Not vaccinated. Till the very end, on the hospital bed, the person remained in good spirits that he would overcome the virus. In denial until death. Sad.
Of course I share many of your frustration against these misguided folks. But I don't harbour any contempt for them, but more of pity. Maybe if we try to understand their mindset more, we can come up with a better governmental policy that could nudge them towards vaccination. And if we find out that their beliefs are really irrational, then governments can justify taking a harder stance against them (mandatory isolation, denial of health benefits, etc).
What that puzzles me more is why governments are on one hand pushing hard the message that "no one is safe until everyone is vaccinated" but on the other hand then stopped short of going harder against the unvaccinated. Maybe politics get in the way. But a middle-ground approach is bound to leave some skeptics unpersuaded.
In short, I'm not really surprised why some people remain as anti-vaxxers, and why governments find it difficult to convert them. While I dont think I am anti-vaxxer (I just dont care if others get vaccinated, or not, it is up to them) I didnt however get vaccinated and I am not planning to get vaccine. Before people jump on me: yes Covid exists, yes I put mask on when required and I do self isolate when needed. Thing with above is that they are just minor annoyances, which I can live with. Vaccines though: First of all - I knew Covid will wash over me, I was sick plenty as a kid and now I am reaping benefits of it, I dont even remember when last time I had viral infection with some serious symptoms. In case of Covid I like sneezed twice and felt a bit off for 1 day. Didnt even bother to take time off from work (I work from home btw). So it is pretty much "if is not broken, dont fix it" situation. The point at which I knew I wont get vaccinated was when it turned out that every Vaccine producer wanted legal immunity (I mean like seriously what the ..., law is cool concept, but it shouldnt apply to me??, how did anyone agreed to that, how is that even actually legal?). I am sorry, but if you manufactured something and want to inject me with it, you will take responsibility, or you can inject yourself. Then it is a case of: where apropriate insert "millions vaccinated later" You want get sick You want be contagious You want have heavy symptoms You want have to be hospitalized You want die You may die, but the risk is smaller If that doesnt prove that they didnt really knew what vaccine actually do, at the time when they started vaccinate people then I dont know what does. Nobody (unless they have time machine) knows what long term effects of vaccines are. Yes we also dont know what long term effects of Covid are, but vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting Covid, so basically if you get vaccine you changing 1 unknown for 2. When it comes to my health I'll rather stick with 1 unknown. As for me needing tinfoil hat - if believing that for large business, primary goal is to make money (look at Pfizzer profit) and everything else is secondary, makes me crazy, then yes I probably need one. Its odd to me that you "knew" many people knew and got really sick. And yes all the people tealling you to get vaccinated are injecting themselves, in fact most of those saying not to, or you shouldt have too are also injecting thrmselves. Its also odd to me that your bout with covid has changed since your post in march. Show nested quote +I am pretty sure i had an actual coronavirus as early as 1 January and my wife 2 weeks later.
All the symptoms matched and while for me it was like really bad flu, my wife was 3 weeks barely able to move with doctors changing antibiotics and openly admitting they dont know what is happening. Your logic on future risk is really terrible. In very sinplistic terms the vaccines are much weaker to get you antibodis active to fight tge real thing, why would that be worse? In terms of actual information we have now the long term effects of covid are exponetially worse than the virus and those who had the vaccine and the virus are having way less. Given that your logic is flawed, and the scant bit of information you have provided here is incredibily inconsitent it is probably not wise to continue to rely on what you "know" and better to trust in the experts with way more, better data and have much better and unbiased ways of making determinations. Yes pfizer is making profits, but goverments are also doing calculations and guess what vaccinating your populace is WAY cheaper than dealing with those who get really sick and need hospital care and its not close. Think of how dumb we would think an engineer was to not put oil in 100 machines each month (for 2 bucks) if we knew that kept them from blowing up but if he does not 2 will blow up a year (each costing 500,000). No one would be like why are you wasting that oil on 98 machines that do not need it you are just funding that oil producer.
Germany spent almost 1.000.000.000 € tax money on vaccines, gave some more money to hospitals to support them through the pandemic with no actual regulations on how a hospital can get it resulting on a loss of 7.000 hospital beds so institutions in no need for money could actually apply for the benefit, reducing that way also the maintenance costs.
At the same time, hospitals that actually needed it got zero support which turned into Germany losing around 20 hospitals in 2020.
If the money spent on vaccines went to the health care system, Germany would have had better support and care not only for treating COVID, but also other diseases, not only for 2020 but for the coming future. Now the country is not only complaining about the stress on the health care system (no wonder when you lost 7.000 beds), but also not even showing improvement in terms of mortality and excess mortality, having an overall higher mortality for all causes in 2021 compared to 2020.
On top of that, lets say a family father gets vaccinated and dies for instance of heart failure, no one ever never nowhere will be held accountable for that and that family will have to find a new way to survive, so if that father were to decide for himself not to take that risk and rather get COVID, he is already paying for the health care system, he has been paying for that since he started working, he is not paying for past treatments but rather for probable incoming needed treatments given his age and preexisting conditions based on calculations made by the system, he might have to pay more to include the risks of this new disease.
Just as no one will have to care for his family when he is gone, he won't have to care for someone else's family when that one is gone. So if everyone if free to choose what to eat, drink and do with their own body each day (which has an impact on what that father pays to the health care system), he should be free too, that includes whether he gets vaccinated or not.
There are countries where you won't be admitted to the hospital if you are not vaccinated, but no one is free enough to open a hospital for non-vaccinated only so they won't be a risk for the vaccinated and they are "forced" to pay for a probable treatment they are not allowed to get.
This and much more can be said for and against someone's way of thinking. As for me, believing in politicians was never my thing, this whole thing is run by politicians, who pick rather cunningly the experts on the matter. If we are really really free, we have to respect the freedom of others and that includes their decision on getting vaccinated. We all contribute to the system, and everyone's taxes are paying not only for the health care system, but also for the vaccines, if that is not a good enough solution, we should look for a new one.
Arguing about the risk a non-vaccinated individual poses to the health care system, given a majority of the population has been vaccinated, reducing the stress on the system, the risk of being of hospitalized and dying of the disease (as the narrative says), is completely besides the point. If the vaccine really works as the narrative tells, then we should be seeing an improvement in all fronts. If the excuse is non-vaccinated "giving birth" to new strains, how will each country deal with countries with less than 100% vaccination rate? Will they not allow any citizen traveling there? How? Will the whole population forcefully vaccinated to then fall to a business trip? Will imports be prohibited from such countries? Will animals be shot down on the spot while going over the "line", because they might be carrying a new strain?
We might support some ideas, but we also have to think for ourselves.
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On January 02 2022 04:08 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2022 03:42 Racket wrote:On January 02 2022 02:26 JimmiC wrote:On January 02 2022 00:42 Razyda wrote:On December 31 2021 21:53 RKC wrote:
I don't know any anti-vaxxer personally. But it's not puzzling at all how their minds could potentially operate.
Perhaps they feel the virus is nothing exeptionally unusual and will eventually infect enough people for herd immunity to be reached (and vaccination hinders this natural process of evolution). Perhaps they accept that the virus is an anomaly but are prepared to accept this risk as being part of life and death.
The extreme ones believe in some tin-pot government conspiracy or cosmic forces at play. But most likely they are the minority amongst the entire anti-vax community.
I've heard of a story from a friend (purely hearsay) of a professional, intelligent and elderly person who died from COVID. Not vaccinated. Till the very end, on the hospital bed, the person remained in good spirits that he would overcome the virus. In denial until death. Sad.
Of course I share many of your frustration against these misguided folks. But I don't harbour any contempt for them, but more of pity. Maybe if we try to understand their mindset more, we can come up with a better governmental policy that could nudge them towards vaccination. And if we find out that their beliefs are really irrational, then governments can justify taking a harder stance against them (mandatory isolation, denial of health benefits, etc).
What that puzzles me more is why governments are on one hand pushing hard the message that "no one is safe until everyone is vaccinated" but on the other hand then stopped short of going harder against the unvaccinated. Maybe politics get in the way. But a middle-ground approach is bound to leave some skeptics unpersuaded.
In short, I'm not really surprised why some people remain as anti-vaxxers, and why governments find it difficult to convert them. While I dont think I am anti-vaxxer (I just dont care if others get vaccinated, or not, it is up to them) I didnt however get vaccinated and I am not planning to get vaccine. Before people jump on me: yes Covid exists, yes I put mask on when required and I do self isolate when needed. Thing with above is that they are just minor annoyances, which I can live with. Vaccines though: First of all - I knew Covid will wash over me, I was sick plenty as a kid and now I am reaping benefits of it, I dont even remember when last time I had viral infection with some serious symptoms. In case of Covid I like sneezed twice and felt a bit off for 1 day. Didnt even bother to take time off from work (I work from home btw). So it is pretty much "if is not broken, dont fix it" situation. The point at which I knew I wont get vaccinated was when it turned out that every Vaccine producer wanted legal immunity (I mean like seriously what the ..., law is cool concept, but it shouldnt apply to me??, how did anyone agreed to that, how is that even actually legal?). I am sorry, but if you manufactured something and want to inject me with it, you will take responsibility, or you can inject yourself. Then it is a case of: where apropriate insert "millions vaccinated later" You want get sick You want be contagious You want have heavy symptoms You want have to be hospitalized You want die You may die, but the risk is smaller If that doesnt prove that they didnt really knew what vaccine actually do, at the time when they started vaccinate people then I dont know what does. Nobody (unless they have time machine) knows what long term effects of vaccines are. Yes we also dont know what long term effects of Covid are, but vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting Covid, so basically if you get vaccine you changing 1 unknown for 2. When it comes to my health I'll rather stick with 1 unknown. As for me needing tinfoil hat - if believing that for large business, primary goal is to make money (look at Pfizzer profit) and everything else is secondary, makes me crazy, then yes I probably need one. Its odd to me that you "knew" many people knew and got really sick. And yes all the people tealling you to get vaccinated are injecting themselves, in fact most of those saying not to, or you shouldt have too are also injecting thrmselves. Its also odd to me that your bout with covid has changed since your post in march. I am pretty sure i had an actual coronavirus as early as 1 January and my wife 2 weeks later.
All the symptoms matched and while for me it was like really bad flu, my wife was 3 weeks barely able to move with doctors changing antibiotics and openly admitting they dont know what is happening. Your logic on future risk is really terrible. In very sinplistic terms the vaccines are much weaker to get you antibodis active to fight tge real thing, why would that be worse? In terms of actual information we have now the long term effects of covid are exponetially worse than the virus and those who had the vaccine and the virus are having way less. Given that your logic is flawed, and the scant bit of information you have provided here is incredibily inconsitent it is probably not wise to continue to rely on what you "know" and better to trust in the experts with way more, better data and have much better and unbiased ways of making determinations. Yes pfizer is making profits, but goverments are also doing calculations and guess what vaccinating your populace is WAY cheaper than dealing with those who get really sick and need hospital care and its not close. Think of how dumb we would think an engineer was to not put oil in 100 machines each month (for 2 bucks) if we knew that kept them from blowing up but if he does not 2 will blow up a year (each costing 500,000). No one would be like why are you wasting that oil on 98 machines that do not need it you are just funding that oil producer. Germany spent almost 1.000.000.000 € tax money on vaccines, gave some more money to hospitals to support them through the pandemic with no actual regulations on how a hospital can get it resulting on a loss of 7.000 hospital beds so institutions in no need for money could actually apply for the benefit, reducing that way also the maintenance costs. At the same time, hospitals that actually needed it got zero support which turned into Germany losing around 20 hospitals in 2020. If the money spent on vaccines went to the health care system, Germany would have had better support and care not only for treating COVID, but also other diseases, not only for 2020 but for the coming future. Now the country is not only complaining about the stress on the health care system (no wonder when you lost 7.000 beds), but also not even showing improvement in terms of mortality and excess mortality, having an overall higher mortality for all causes in 2021 compared to 2020. On top of that, lets say a family father gets vaccinated and dies for instance of heart failure, no one ever never nowhere will be held accountable for that and that family will have to find a new way to survive, so if that father were to decide for himself not to take that risk and rather get COVID, he is already paying for the health care system, he has been paying for that since he started working, he is not paying for past treatments but rather for probable incoming needed treatments given his age and preexisting conditions based on calculations made by the system, he might have to pay more to include the risks of this new disease. Just as no one will have to care for his family when he is gone, he won't have to care for someone else's family when that one is gone. So if everyone if free to choose what to eat, drink and do with their own body each day (which has an impact on what that father pays to the health care system), he should be free too, that includes whether he gets vaccinated or not. There are countries where you won't be admitted to the hospital if you are not vaccinated, but no one is free enough to open a hospital for non-vaccinated only so they won't be a risk for the vaccinated and they are "forced" to pay for a probable treatment they are not allowed to get. This and much more can be said for and against someone's way of thinking. As for me, believing in politicians was never my thing, this whole thing is run by politicians, who pick rather cunningly the experts on the matter. If we are really really free, we have to respect the freedom of others and that includes their decision on getting vaccinated. We all contribute to the system, and everyone's taxes are paying not only for the health care system, but also for the vaccines, if that is not a good enough solution, we should look for a new one. Arguing about the risk a non-vaccinated individual poses to the health care system, given a majority of the population has been vaccinated, reducing the stress on the system, the risk of being of hospitalized and dying of the disease (as the narrative says), is completely besides the point. If the vaccine really works as the narrative tells, then we should be seeing an improvement in all fronts. If the excuse is non-vaccinated "giving birth" to new strains, how will each country deal with countries with less than 100% vaccination rate? Will they not allow any citizen traveling there? How? Will the whole population forcefully vaccinated to then fall to a business trip? Will imports be prohibited from such countries? Will animals be shot down on the spot while going over the "line", because they might be carrying a new strain? We might support some ideas, but we also have to think for ourselves. All of this ranges from mis information to nonsense. the entire cost of the pandemic in Germany is 1.3 trillion not the cost of vaccines. they have spent 6.2 billion on Vaccines, notice that is less then 1% of the total cost. Imagine just making up that many words and then posting them as if they were true. Amumoman is that you? https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-faces-13-trillion-covid-bill/a-56103251https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-05/germany-to-spend-up-to-7-3-billion-on-virus-vaccination-drive
You have to search properly:
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/biontech-curevac-bag-745m-german-funding-for-covid-19-vaccine-hopefuls
That is September 2020, we are now in January 2022.
And just so you actually know what you linked:
- I wrote "1.000.000.000 €" (my link states hopefuls for 745.000.000 €)
- Your article says "€1.3 trillion" which is "1.300.000.000.000" (more than thousand times my figure)
- You say "they have spent 6.2 billion on Vaccines" which is "6.200.000.000 €" (more than six times my figure)
So, now tell me how is your argument not making mine any better? I would gladly strengthen my health care system with 6.2 billion euros to not only care for COVID but also many other diseases afflicting the population.
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Northern Ireland27272 Posts
I don’t think you can nearly as effectively improve outcomes across a whole health service with an extra 6.2 billion to the extent the vaccines are beneficial in dealing with Covid
This isn’t to say extra investment is a negative at all, but unless that 6.2 billion is filling a known hole, it’s not a huge amount of money when spread across a large health service. 6.2 billion is money well spent on vaccines that are pretty damn effective, with a lot of beneficial knock-on effects. It’s much less transformative when that money is to be used for everything
My hypothetical whole house may need a lot of work, but if I’m only armed with one tin of paint and half a container of Polyfilla, I’m better just fixing up one room than trying to stretch what I’ve got across the whole house.
Doesn’t mean that fixing my house isn’t something that also needs done at some stage and materials acquired to do that.
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Razyda, where are you from?
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On January 02 2022 04:55 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2022 04:37 Racket wrote:On January 02 2022 04:08 JimmiC wrote:On January 02 2022 03:42 Racket wrote:On January 02 2022 02:26 JimmiC wrote:On January 02 2022 00:42 Razyda wrote:On December 31 2021 21:53 RKC wrote:
I don't know any anti-vaxxer personally. But it's not puzzling at all how their minds could potentially operate.
Perhaps they feel the virus is nothing exeptionally unusual and will eventually infect enough people for herd immunity to be reached (and vaccination hinders this natural process of evolution). Perhaps they accept that the virus is an anomaly but are prepared to accept this risk as being part of life and death.
The extreme ones believe in some tin-pot government conspiracy or cosmic forces at play. But most likely they are the minority amongst the entire anti-vax community.
I've heard of a story from a friend (purely hearsay) of a professional, intelligent and elderly person who died from COVID. Not vaccinated. Till the very end, on the hospital bed, the person remained in good spirits that he would overcome the virus. In denial until death. Sad.
Of course I share many of your frustration against these misguided folks. But I don't harbour any contempt for them, but more of pity. Maybe if we try to understand their mindset more, we can come up with a better governmental policy that could nudge them towards vaccination. And if we find out that their beliefs are really irrational, then governments can justify taking a harder stance against them (mandatory isolation, denial of health benefits, etc).
What that puzzles me more is why governments are on one hand pushing hard the message that "no one is safe until everyone is vaccinated" but on the other hand then stopped short of going harder against the unvaccinated. Maybe politics get in the way. But a middle-ground approach is bound to leave some skeptics unpersuaded.
In short, I'm not really surprised why some people remain as anti-vaxxers, and why governments find it difficult to convert them. While I dont think I am anti-vaxxer (I just dont care if others get vaccinated, or not, it is up to them) I didnt however get vaccinated and I am not planning to get vaccine. Before people jump on me: yes Covid exists, yes I put mask on when required and I do self isolate when needed. Thing with above is that they are just minor annoyances, which I can live with. Vaccines though: First of all - I knew Covid will wash over me, I was sick plenty as a kid and now I am reaping benefits of it, I dont even remember when last time I had viral infection with some serious symptoms. In case of Covid I like sneezed twice and felt a bit off for 1 day. Didnt even bother to take time off from work (I work from home btw). So it is pretty much "if is not broken, dont fix it" situation. The point at which I knew I wont get vaccinated was when it turned out that every Vaccine producer wanted legal immunity (I mean like seriously what the ..., law is cool concept, but it shouldnt apply to me??, how did anyone agreed to that, how is that even actually legal?). I am sorry, but if you manufactured something and want to inject me with it, you will take responsibility, or you can inject yourself. Then it is a case of: where apropriate insert "millions vaccinated later" You want get sick You want be contagious You want have heavy symptoms You want have to be hospitalized You want die You may die, but the risk is smaller If that doesnt prove that they didnt really knew what vaccine actually do, at the time when they started vaccinate people then I dont know what does. Nobody (unless they have time machine) knows what long term effects of vaccines are. Yes we also dont know what long term effects of Covid are, but vaccine doesnt prevent you from getting Covid, so basically if you get vaccine you changing 1 unknown for 2. When it comes to my health I'll rather stick with 1 unknown. As for me needing tinfoil hat - if believing that for large business, primary goal is to make money (look at Pfizzer profit) and everything else is secondary, makes me crazy, then yes I probably need one. Its odd to me that you "knew" many people knew and got really sick. And yes all the people tealling you to get vaccinated are injecting themselves, in fact most of those saying not to, or you shouldt have too are also injecting thrmselves. Its also odd to me that your bout with covid has changed since your post in march. I am pretty sure i had an actual coronavirus as early as 1 January and my wife 2 weeks later.
All the symptoms matched and while for me it was like really bad flu, my wife was 3 weeks barely able to move with doctors changing antibiotics and openly admitting they dont know what is happening. Your logic on future risk is really terrible. In very sinplistic terms the vaccines are much weaker to get you antibodis active to fight tge real thing, why would that be worse? In terms of actual information we have now the long term effects of covid are exponetially worse than the virus and those who had the vaccine and the virus are having way less. Given that your logic is flawed, and the scant bit of information you have provided here is incredibily inconsitent it is probably not wise to continue to rely on what you "know" and better to trust in the experts with way more, better data and have much better and unbiased ways of making determinations. Yes pfizer is making profits, but goverments are also doing calculations and guess what vaccinating your populace is WAY cheaper than dealing with those who get really sick and need hospital care and its not close. Think of how dumb we would think an engineer was to not put oil in 100 machines each month (for 2 bucks) if we knew that kept them from blowing up but if he does not 2 will blow up a year (each costing 500,000). No one would be like why are you wasting that oil on 98 machines that do not need it you are just funding that oil producer. Germany spent almost 1.000.000.000 € tax money on vaccines, gave some more money to hospitals to support them through the pandemic with no actual regulations on how a hospital can get it resulting on a loss of 7.000 hospital beds so institutions in no need for money could actually apply for the benefit, reducing that way also the maintenance costs. At the same time, hospitals that actually needed it got zero support which turned into Germany losing around 20 hospitals in 2020. If the money spent on vaccines went to the health care system, Germany would have had better support and care not only for treating COVID, but also other diseases, not only for 2020 but for the coming future. Now the country is not only complaining about the stress on the health care system (no wonder when you lost 7.000 beds), but also not even showing improvement in terms of mortality and excess mortality, having an overall higher mortality for all causes in 2021 compared to 2020. On top of that, lets say a family father gets vaccinated and dies for instance of heart failure, no one ever never nowhere will be held accountable for that and that family will have to find a new way to survive, so if that father were to decide for himself not to take that risk and rather get COVID, he is already paying for the health care system, he has been paying for that since he started working, he is not paying for past treatments but rather for probable incoming needed treatments given his age and preexisting conditions based on calculations made by the system, he might have to pay more to include the risks of this new disease. Just as no one will have to care for his family when he is gone, he won't have to care for someone else's family when that one is gone. So if everyone if free to choose what to eat, drink and do with their own body each day (which has an impact on what that father pays to the health care system), he should be free too, that includes whether he gets vaccinated or not. There are countries where you won't be admitted to the hospital if you are not vaccinated, but no one is free enough to open a hospital for non-vaccinated only so they won't be a risk for the vaccinated and they are "forced" to pay for a probable treatment they are not allowed to get. This and much more can be said for and against someone's way of thinking. As for me, believing in politicians was never my thing, this whole thing is run by politicians, who pick rather cunningly the experts on the matter. If we are really really free, we have to respect the freedom of others and that includes their decision on getting vaccinated. We all contribute to the system, and everyone's taxes are paying not only for the health care system, but also for the vaccines, if that is not a good enough solution, we should look for a new one. Arguing about the risk a non-vaccinated individual poses to the health care system, given a majority of the population has been vaccinated, reducing the stress on the system, the risk of being of hospitalized and dying of the disease (as the narrative says), is completely besides the point. If the vaccine really works as the narrative tells, then we should be seeing an improvement in all fronts. If the excuse is non-vaccinated "giving birth" to new strains, how will each country deal with countries with less than 100% vaccination rate? Will they not allow any citizen traveling there? How? Will the whole population forcefully vaccinated to then fall to a business trip? Will imports be prohibited from such countries? Will animals be shot down on the spot while going over the "line", because they might be carrying a new strain? We might support some ideas, but we also have to think for ourselves. All of this ranges from mis information to nonsense. the entire cost of the pandemic in Germany is 1.3 trillion not the cost of vaccines. they have spent 6.2 billion on Vaccines, notice that is less then 1% of the total cost. Imagine just making up that many words and then posting them as if they were true. Amumoman is that you? https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-faces-13-trillion-covid-bill/a-56103251https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-05/germany-to-spend-up-to-7-3-billion-on-virus-vaccination-drive You have to search properly: https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/biontech-curevac-bag-745m-german-funding-for-covid-19-vaccine-hopefulsThat is September 2020, we are now in January 2022. And just so you actually know what you linked: - I wrote "1.000.000.000 €" (my link states hopefuls for 745.000.000 €) - Your article says "€1.3 trillion" which is "1.300.000.000.000" (more than thousand times my figure) - You say "they have spent 6.2 billion on Vaccines" which is "6.200.000.000 €" (more than six times my figure) So, now tell me how is your argument not making mine any better? I would gladly strengthen my health care system with 6.2 billion euros to not only care for COVID but also many other diseases afflicting the population. Because without the vaccine the costs would have been much greater, its not hard math. Your argument amounts to we shouldn't put oil in our cars because if we didn't we could have a couple more bays to fix all the exploded engines, without any understanding that preventing blown up engines is way cheaper and better than having more bays. It costs about 20 bucks per shot, it costs 25k per night in hospital on average. That is before you get to all the economic costs. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/unvaccinated-covid-patients-cost-the-u-s-health-system-billions-of-dollars/If you can't see that 6.2 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the 1.3 trillion cost. And if you don't believe vaccines are safe and effective then no amount of talk is going to change that because the data is clear. I'm not sure what sources you would trust so here is a whole pile of them. http://www.bccdc.ca/about/news-stories/stories/2021/covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness-resultshttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-vaccines-effective-in-preventing-hospitalization-and-er-visitshttps://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/11/covid-19-vaccines-85-effective-against-hospital-cases-weaken-over-timehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaccine-reduce-idUSL1N2PC2O9https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-vaccines-illness-death-risk-1.6171958https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(21)00061-2/fulltexthttps://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2021/dec/us-covid-19-vaccination-program-one-year-how-many-deaths-andhttps://www.cnn.com/2021/04/28/health/covid-19-vaccines-reduce-hospitalization-cdc-study/index.htmlhttps://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/covid-wwksf/2021/04/wwksf-vaccine-effectiveness.pdf?la=enhttps://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-10-05/study-pfizer-vaccine-90-effective-against-hospitalization-for-6-months
To not go astray and discuss a different topic, the point is the decision about taking the shot or not. It is a personal decision, the government can give you all the information needed to make a decision (being it economic based, health based, etc.), the decision is still yours.
If someone decides not to take the shot but 65%+ of the population took it, it should without a doubt have a positive impact, the risk of not being vaccinated resting solely on the non-vaccinated.
Why? Because vaccinated are protected, their risk of being hospitalized and dying reduced. Reduction of bed days and reduction of stress on the health care system should be noticeable. Non-vaccinated being hospitalized should be a manageable situation if we managed 100% non-vaccinated+unprepared.
If we are prepared to force vaccinate people based on health reasons, then lets banish alcohol, drugs, unhealthy food, sedentary ways of living and much much more. This way we will reduce a lot of health care system's costs and improve the way we care for others.
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Northern Ireland27272 Posts
Those other things are not highly contagious diseases, they’re also not exactly easy to do.
Aside from popping a pill, there’s almost nothing simpler than getting vaccinated, maintaining basically every aspect of physical/mental health is more to significantly more effort.
I’m unclear whether you even oppose vaccination, and if so whether it’s through principle, or cost objections or what.
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EPT
