It annoys me that we now seem to have thousands of "experts" voicing their often ill-informed views and conspiracy theories on social media, about the covid 19 virus and now the vaccine.
The overwhelming medical opinion that I have read encourages people to take the vaccine. There may be a risk, but there are risks people face every day. Of course, it is a personal decision and if you consider the risk and possible implications of contracting the covid 19 virus less than your perceived risk in taking the vaccine, then don't take the vaccine.
Just don't repeat conspiracy theories and misinformation as fact. The only fact that I am interested in with regard to the vaccine is that it has been tested and proven safe and the clear medical advice is to take it in order to safeguard you from contracting the virus; and to enable all of us to return to a normal life, including watching our local rugby team.
So yes, I will be taking the vaccine when it is offered.
My first jab is booked for next Saturday, the second one 3 weeks later.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion but the opinion carries more weight and deserves more respect if it is based on facts and demonstrable evidence rather than the result of - at the other end of the scale - hearing voices in your head.
I will be getting vaccinated when it / they are made available. I suspect if I contracted Covid I would be classified as low risk but I would hate to be infected and pass it onto others who are at greater risk - I think that risk alone is worth taking precautions.
It annoys me that we now seem to have thousands of “experts” voicing their often ill-informed views and conspiracy theories on social media, about the covid 19 virus and now the vaccine. The overwhelming medical opinion that I have read encourages people to take the vaccine. There may be a risk, but there are risks people face every day. Of course, it is a personal decision and if you consider the risk and possible implications of contracting the covid 19 virus less than your perceived risk in taking the vaccine, then don’t take the vaccine. Just don’t repeat conspiracy theories and misinformation as fact. The only fact that I am interested in with regard to the vaccine is that it has been tested and proven safe and the clear medical advice is to take it in order to safeguard you from contracting the virus; and to enable all of us to return to a normal life, including watching our local rugby team. So yes, I will be taking the vaccine when it is offered.
I'm in total agreement. People read too much unfounded rubbish on social media and believe it as fact. I have a friend like that and he basically believes anything that fits his agenda, irrespective of the source. I challenge it on him all the time but it's like speaking to a brick wall. Somebody on TV last night said he wasn't getting it because of the "microbots" in the vaccine. His source? WhatsApp. I mean. Seriously? Too be honest if people like him died of Covid it wouldn't worry me but it's all the people he'll potentially infect because of his imbecility.
People need to read the facts, not the hearsay, rumours and blatant lies that are going around.
No chance, aside from my whole scepticism of the covid thing, treating a zoonotic virus by genetically alternating cells from another animal and injecting them into people seems like asking for more trouble Especially when anti-virus manufacturers are completely exempt from any liability
You do know the smallpox vaccine came from cowpox don't you?
Penicillin is derived from mould and has been quite useful for mankind.
No chance, aside from my whole scepticism of the covid thing, treating a zoonotic virus by genetically alternating cells from another animal and injecting them into people seems like asking for more trouble Especially when anti-virus manufacturers are completely exempt from any liability
You do know the smallpox vaccine came from cowpox don’t you?
I do, i also know that humans caught cowpox hence the correlation between having cowpox and immunity to smallpox, i also know that as with all early vaccines that the idea was to introduce a dead or weakened virus into the system to allow the body to naturally produce the antibodies required rather than wait for exposure, those would be the same type of antibodies that scientist say 60% of the population already have for covid19 due to exposure to previous corona virus such as the common cold, even PHE conservatively estimate 50% of the population are already immune.
At no point in time did any of these vaccines involve injecting modified chimp cells into anybody as with the Oxford vaccine or injecting people with a substance that genetically modified their own cells to produce a protein that many already carry.
nobody can say this vaccine is safe because it has not been round or tested long enough , its like a tobacco company saying smoking doesnt cause cancer because you had a fag last week and havent got it yet, there is a reason these things take 5 to 10 years to test and not 3 months
On the subject of misinformation you may want to look at how this vaccine got its 95% effective rating and while we are still being bombarded with dying santas and people breathing mustard gas on adverts alongside the daily figures of "covid" cases, after over a year the WHO have finally admitted the PCR tests produce many false positives inflating case numbers, call me cynical but the timing of this announcement after a year and the emergence of a vaccine is more than coincidental
Whilst I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I think that history will revise down the nature and impact of this virus. The death figures are vague and misleading. I don't think that most people have a grasp on how many people actually die on any given day, for example, 450 for heart disease, 450 for cancer; every day. There is absolutely no definitive way of determining how many people have died FROM Covid as opposed to WITH it, which are the figures we see on the telly every day. The vast majority of these people had underlying health conditions and might well have died anyway. My wife's friend's aunty is a Covid death despite having leukemia and being on her death bed for the last 2 years. Covid probably didn't do her any favours but the reality is that she would be dead now anyway. I've said I'll have my vaccine shot, when it gets around to me, that's for sure. Although I'm not sure that the way we have lived for the past 12 months, damaging the economy for the best part of a generation, will prove to be the right thing to have done.
I think a more accurate reflection of the number of covid related deaths is the survey by the Financial Times of the number of excess deaths during the year compared to the average number of deaths from all causes in recent years. This survey shows that in the UK, the number of excess deaths is 67,500.
To suggest that the number of people dying as a result of the virus is somehow exaggerated because many would have died anyway, is just plain wrong and heartless. We are all going to die at some time, so perhaps this suggests that no one has died as a result of covid. They have just died a bit earlier!
If someone has a terminal illness, but dies sooner than they may have done after contracting the virus, is that not a covid related death? Can you simply dismiss the fact that they have died even a day earlier than expected, as they would have died anyway? Don't they deserve the chance of that extra day of life?
The covid pandemic has had a devastating impact around the world, with 67m confirmed cases and 1.53m people known to have died (WHO figures). We will all have an opinion on whether the Government's response to the pandemic in the UK has been right or not. History will judge them. All I would say is that the economy can recover, but the people who have died as a result of the virus and possibly the Government's mishandling of the response, will still be dead!!!
When you know people who have lost their lives through covid any chance of a vaccine is a no brainer. To all the sceptics get out the queue cos I will jump it without any problem.
Waiting for my turn to have the jab, the sooner the better for me!
Overheard an unusual (I hope) view on Covid recently. It was claimed that only “weak” or old people are dying and that they add very little to society. It’s the young and fit who are the productive ones and so far as Covid is concerned, they are generally asymptotic. He said it’s just another example of the strongest always survive and prosper.
I wonder if some people hold similar views about RL? In other words concentrate support on the strong SL clubs and let the rest of the clubs fade away.
Both are immoral and corrupt opinions.
I saw some analysis, admittedly in November, that said 55% of deaths had been people over 80 and, for total deaths, 90%+ had significant underlying health conditions.
The total number of deaths for people under 40 with no underlying health conditions was about 50 at time of reading.
Excess deaths in itself can also be misleading, there are always fluctuations in the number of recorded deaths. For example, 612k people died in 2003, 552k in 2011 (60k less) but back up to 616k in 2018. The number of recorded deaths has risen each year from 2011 to 2019.
I'm certainly not suggesting that there isn't a rampaging virus on the loose, I am suggesting the data presented is misleading. And I don't agree that closing down society completely is the right response. We have a Govt. who have just subjected the poorest and most vulnerable in our society to 10 years of austerity, which by the way has severely impacted our ability to cope with this virus, and have now borrowed over £300Bn to combat it. Paying this back is going to take a generation of tax hikes and service cuts.
If we knew that we would not have to have repeats every few months it would be a NO but if it was an annual or longer a YES. I am sure that will be sorted out sooner than later. Time will tell. In the meantime well done to all who have worked to produce this vaccine so quickly. Next job is on CANCER.
I had similar thoughts to you about the vaccination not lasting a year, but a doctor confirmed to me that it would likely be annual at worst. Even if the vaccination did only last say 8 months, the fact that a likely 90% of the population would be vaccinated would create a herd immunity so annual vaccination would be fine. I thought it made sense.
I love this new term ‘excess death’ that has insinuated its way into the language recently. Not sure what it means but I read in early December that, at that point, there had been 80,000 this year.
There were 50k excess deaths in the winter of 2017/18 alone and there was no coronavirus then. That was down to 23k the year after. Like I said, if you look at the figures, it fluctuates all the time.