Coronavirus

[Curly]

Just now, Jairzinho said:

Personally I think those comparisons would be ridiculous. 

 

Nobody is addicted to not taking a vaccine.

Whereas you could argue that people who give a fuck about what they put into their body would be less likely to want to take a vaccine that has been rushed to market, as well as mindful of putting shite into their body that harms it, such as drugs and terrible food. They’d fall on opposite sides of that coin.

[Captain Howdy]

1 minute ago, Jairzinho said:

Personally I think those comparisons would be ridiculous. 

 

Nobody is addicted to not taking a vaccine.

But it still centres around choice,  there are I would imagine millions of people who drink, eat and smoke too much, not through addiction but because they want to despite knowing the potential consequences, they think “it won’t happen to me”  If the NHS start picking and choosing who to treat then for me that has the potential to become dystopian. I think the comparison is valid.

[Curly]

5 minutes ago, A Red said:

With respect, you are missing the whole point of the vaccines. You can argue they don't stop the spread of the virus or that they do, its pretty much irrelevant really.

 

The whole point is the NHS, the more that are fully jabbed up the less likely is that it is overrun. That's why people should choose to take the jabs, so that people that need treatment for covid or other issues can get it. Imagine a scenario where the hospitals are full of covid patients with absolutely no spare capacity. 

 

 

No, I do get that mate. The number I’ve just seen after a quick Google is up to 26% of Omicron hospital admissions are unvaccinated. Agree that losing those admissions would ease strain, but they probably wouldn’t all avoid hospital treatment anyway even if up to date with their vaccines. 
 

The minority of people that choose not to have the vaccines are not the be all and end all reason behind everything that is happening.

[Jairzinho]

6 minutes ago, Belarus said:

Whereas you could argue that people who give a fuck about what they put into their body would be less likely to want to take a vaccine that has been rushed to market, as well as mindful of putting shite into their body that harms it, such as drugs and terrible food. They’d fall on opposite sides of that coin.

I mean...you could.

[Spy Bee]

Boris Johnson has now told people that for a new year's resolution, they should have a booster, because it's easier than losing weight.

[Curly]

1 minute ago, Jairzinho said:

I mean...you could.

Haha. Fair enough that.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

Universal health care has to remain exactly that, universal. No matter how much of a moron someone is.

[Jairzinho]

11 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

But it still centres around choice,  there are I would imagine millions of people who drink, eat and smoke too much, not through addiction but because they want to despite knowing the potential consequences, they think “it won’t happen to me”  If the NHS start picking and choosing who to treat then for me that has the potential to become dystopian. I think the comparison is valid.

I just think the circumstances are completely different. Most people who haven't had the vaccines either can't be bothered to sort it out or are complete mentalists. Their decision to trust Steve on twitter who went to the University of Life over the vast, vast majority of the world's epidemiologists isn't comparable to people who are either addicted to smoking, drinking, or drugs (and most people who will have a problem serious enough to end up in hospital will be). 

 

Maybe food is slightly different argument, for me. I would certainly be in favour of both far more education regarding diet, and restrictions on companies regarding advertising, etc. Like you, I wouldn't be comfortable limiting someone's access to the NHS though.

 

 

[dockers_strike]

Interesting.

 

Exponential growth in Covid cases appears to have stopped, with the virus spreading at a steadier rate, data from a symptom-tracking app has suggested.

The ZOE Covid Study said the trend had emerged despite the number of daily new symptomatic Covid cases being more than double what it was at this time last year.

Researchers also estimate that 75 per cent of people experiencing new cold-like symptoms are instead likely to have symptomatic Covid.

This is up from around 50 per cent last week, with the study reporting that the data was showing a fall in the number of non-Covid "colds" and a rise in symptomatic virus infections.

It also said that the incidence figures show that there are currently 192,290 new daily symptomatic cases of Covid in the UK on average, based on test data from up to three days ago. This is up 33 per cent from the 144,284 reported last week.

The study found that while the increase in cases appeared to be slowing in those aged up to 55, it was "rising sharply" in the 55 to 75-year-old range. It said this was "worrying" because this older age group was at more risk of needing hospital treatment.

Dr Claire Steves, a scientist on the ZOE Covid Study app, said signs such as a sore throat, headache, and runny nose needed to be added to the Government's list of Covid symptoms as soon as possible.

She added: "The number of daily new symptomatic Covid cases are more than double what they were this time last year and we are just a day or two away from hitting over 200,000.

"However, the exponential growth in cases appears to have stopped, and the rise is more steady. Hospitalisation rates are thankfully much lower than this time last year – but they are still high, especially in London.

"It's good news to see that fewer people are newly sick than a few weeks ago. However, the fact that 75 per cent of new cold-like symptoms are Covid, and the classic symptoms are much less common, means the Government advice needs to be urgently updated.

"We want to see symptoms like sore throat, headache and runny nose added to the list as soon as possible."

The ZOE study found that there were 78,748 new daily symptomatic Covid cases in the vaccinated population – those with at least two doses – across the UK, up 40 per cent from 56,346 last week.

It estimated that, on average, one in 32 people in the UK currently have symptomatic Covid, rising to one in 30 in England. In Wales it is one in 41, in Scotland one in 51, and in London one in 16. The ZOE study incidence figures are based on reports from around 840,000 weekly contributors.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: "Since the start of the pandemic, we have acknowledged that Covid-19 has a much longer list of symptoms than the ones used in the case definition, and experts keep the list of symptoms under review."

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/30/covid-spreading-steadier-rate-exponential-growth-stops-study/

[Captain Howdy]

3 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

I just think the circumstances are completely different. Most people who haven't had the vaccines either can't be bothered to sort it out or are complete mentalists. Their decision to trust Steve on twitter who went to the University of Life over the vast, vast majority of the world's epidemiologists isn't comparable to people who are either addicted to smoking, drinking, or drugs (and most people who will have a problem serious enough to end up in hospital will be). 

 

Maybe food is slightly different argument, for me. I would certainly be in favour of both far more education regarding diet, and restrictions on companies regarding advertising, etc. Like you, I wouldn't be comfortable limiting someone's access to the NHS though.

 

 

Fair enough

[Red Phoenix]

How do the millions of vaccinated fare alongside the covid recovered? How much do the vaccinated spread the virus compared to covid recovered? How many adverse reactions in the vaccinated? How much of the virus is sterilised by covid recovered compared to vaccinated? How do any long term health effects from the vaccine play into the process?

 

What if you focus protection in the most at risk instead? Then you build up immunity with recovered that sterilises the virus whilst protected are vaccinated.

 

You're going to have death and illness to some extent and it can't be avoided. We did also have death and illness that was accepted for a long time though with the flu. Is it right to compare coronavirus to the flu? Maybe not so much when delta was going around, but what about with omicron?

 

The vast majority of people do not get ill and need to go to hospital.

 

Do we carry on with these extreme measures and scapegoat the unvaccinated, bring in covid passes and mandates and radically transform our society for something that's now similar to the flu?

 

Ask yourself where we're going with these passes, mandates and the scapegoating. Do any of you honestly believe that the governments and corporations that have screwed people over for our entire lifetimes can be trusted with this? Will they suddenly decide that passes and mandates are done with and let go of that power? What do you honestly believe?

 

This is without even mentioning early treatment of course.

 

Here's something else to leave you with : Covaxin.

 

 

 

Why not use a more traditional vaccine? Would that help solve some of our current problems? Why is Fauci saying that it's not an alternative? Would he be saying the same if Pfizer or Moderna had made it? Why the focus on mrna instead?

 

Here's a thread :

 

 

Let's see how the story of covaxin develops maybe, could be interesting.

[Sugar Ape]

1 hour ago, Jairzinho said:

Not really, as they're considerably more likely to take a bed in a hospital. And push back treating non covid related stuff.

 

I've no issue with people not taking the vaccine. They should be completely free to make the decision, they just shouldn't be allowed to use the NHS when they inevitably get ill.

There are a few other points around this argument. One would be that people who drink and smoke pay vast amounts of tax so while they cost the NHS to treat them, I’d imagine they cover this, or at least pay back most of it. 
 

Another would be that the numbers of people being treated pre-covid for things like obesity, alcoholism etc… was probably pretty steady and could be planned for effectively. You don’t get sudden massive surges in capacity for smoking related Illnesses. 
 

Covid is completely different and can easily lead to the NHS being fucked and operations for other issues being cancelled. It is the sudden surge in admissions that causes issues and that doesn’t happen to any similar degree with smoking, obesity and alcoholism. 
 

The logistics of managing covid is completely different as well. People testing positive need to go on their own wards so the NHS have to operate ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ wards which takes up huge resources and try to manage the risk of people with covid infecting people who are seriously ill being treated for other diseases. Spreading covid to someone getting treated for a heart attack could finish them off when they otherwise might have survived. 
 

And of course as it spreads to staff you get more staff off isolating and a percentage of the staff getting ill and potentially needing weeks or months off. People don’t spread obesity to other people. 
 

That’s not to say I back not treating people who haven’t had the vaccine but the comparison to how the NHS handles other issues doesn’t stand up imo. 

[3 Stacks]

It's very easy to understand why the unvaccinated are vilified. Bar the very elderly and already very sick, regardless of vaxx status, the data is extremely clear that the unvaccinated make up a huge part of hospitalizations and deaths now and the fear of those two things overwhelming health systems is mostly what's keeping society from moving on from Covid. It's really not very complicated. 

 

Well that, and there's a smugness to loads of people who aren't taking it because they think they don't need it like everyone else or there's the conspiracy stuff. Most simply aren't very likeable people and don't come across well. There's a caveat that some demographics may not absolutely need to get vaccinated, but it would probably just help society in general if they did. 

[Sugar Ape]

I do find it interesting though that some people (thinking more of Twitter and the like than here) won’t take a vaccine because they don’t think there is enough data but are overwhelmingly confident that Omicron is ‘just a cold’ based on about four weeks worth of data.

[Spy Bee]

3 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I do find it interesting though that some people (thinking more of Twitter and the like than here) won’t take a vaccine because they don’t think there is enough data but are overwhelmingly confident that Omicron is ‘just a cold’ based on about four weeks worth of data.

Was November 4th only 4 weeks ago?

 

 

[Sugar Ape]

10 minutes ago, Spy Bee said:

Was November 4th only 4 weeks ago?

 

 

Do you get data the day you find the case or do you have to wait until there are a lot to extrapolate from it? I mean, South Africa had about 300 cases in total on the date you have quoted. 

[Spy Bee]

5 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Do you get data the day you find the case or do you have to wait until there are a lot to extrapolate from it? I mean, South Africa had about 300 cases in total on the date you have quoted. 

That is the date of the first sequencing of Omicron. It's very likely to have been around for at least a few weeks before that. Since then, we have had over 8 weeks and millions of cases. That's quite a lot of data to be working with.

[Red Phoenix]

 

https://data.spectator.co.uk/category/nhs

 

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1486514/hospital-beds-reduced-coronavirus-winter-lockdown

[Sugar Ape]

1 minute ago, Spy Bee said:

That is the date of the first sequencing of Omicron. It's very likely to have been around for at least a few weeks before that. Since then, we have had over 8 weeks and millions of cases. That's quite a lot of data to be working with.

I know it’s the date of that. And with Delta also circulating you can’t make any estimates on data previous to that sequencing as you don’t know what variant you are looking at. So you wait until you have a lot of confirmed cases you can look at, which took off around four weeks ago. Like I said. 
 

It’s also in a country with a much lower age demographic to the UK for example, it’s got a totally different makeup of potential immunity from vaccines and infection and it’s in a different season. 
 

But none of this is relevant to my point anyway. If there is enough data from eight million cases to say with confidence that Omicron is like a cold then there is more than enough data to prove vaccines are both safe and effective at preventing serous illness. 

[No2]

The anti-vaccers seem to be missing the point that they have lost the war. You can't unvaccinate a population, everyone has accepted that those down the rabbit hole won't be getting jabbed, all that leaves is a very small number of people that could be swayed one way or the other. 

 

Those in industries that have been badly effected by the lockdown and other measures and subsequently joined the antivac movement would now be better off if the undecided got jabbed.

[magicrat]

1 hour ago, Captain Howdy said:

But it still centres around choice,  there are I would imagine millions of people who drink, eat and smoke too much, not through addiction but because they want to despite knowing the potential consequences, they think “it won’t happen to me”  If the NHS start picking and choosing who to treat then for me that has the potential to become dystopian. I think the comparison is valid.

My rather simplistic take on choice is based on whether choices seriously impact on the well being of others. 

Not getting vaccinated falls into that category.  Smoking was banned in enclosed public spaces , quite rightly imo despite being a smoker at the time.  I have already fallen out with an old mate who refuses the jabs with his response being " you can't get in out once its in there ". All this after having a dose of the virus a year ago. 

I don't know what the answer is in terms of manipulating selfish/ stupid cunts into getting jabbed but I would be billing them the costs of medical care if they catch the virus for starters. 

[TheHowieLama]

46 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

People don’t spread obesity to other people. 

Good post with the caveat that I do eat alot more pizza when out w my fat bastard pals.

[Red Phoenix]

5 minutes ago, magicrat said:

I don't know what the answer is in terms of manipulating selfish/ stupid cunts into getting jabbed but I would be billing them the costs of medical care if they catch the virus for starters. 

 

 

[SasaS]

If Covid had a much higher mortality rate with a good portion of relatively healthy middle aged and younger people dying, rather than mainly very old or very sick, my body my choice would fly out of the window quicker than you can say Pfizer and we will all be vaccinated as fast as the shots are coming out of the manufacturing lines, without anybody even asking you about your personal freedom not to take it.   

[Spy Bee]

12 minutes ago, magicrat said:

My rather simplistic take on choice is based on whether choices seriously impact on the well being of others. 

Not getting vaccinated falls into that category.  Smoking was banned in enclosed public spaces , quite rightly imo despite being a smoker at the time.  I have already fallen out with an old mate who refuses the jabs with his response being " you can't get in out once its in there ". All this after having a dose of the virus a year ago. 

I don't know what the answer is in terms of manipulating selfish/ stupid cunts into getting jabbed but I would be billing them the costs of medical care if they catch the virus for starters. 

There is always a calculation here though. There are a number of factors to consider:

 

- Risk of death to the individual 

- Risk of the individual spreading it to someone else

- Percentage of the population at risk of severe symptoms or death

- Risk of vaccine injury (multiplied by number of boosters required)

- Added benefit of the booster

 

If 0.001% of the population is at risk, and an individual has a 1% chance of passing the virus on to someone at risk, but has a 0.01% of vaccine injury, should they still be expected to take it?

 

We are talking about a virus which has a IFR which will soon be below flu. We didn't demand that everyone had a flu vaccine, wore face masks and practised other interventions, so why would we with this virus?