Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

COVID19 - To Vaccinate or To Not Vaccinate

1141517192022

Replies

  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    J72FIT wrote: »
    I am grateful that wearing a mask does not bother me. Do I love it? No. At the end of the day is it a deal breaker? No...

    I have a tried many, many different ones to find something I felt comfortable in. TBH, I sometimes forget I’m wearing it driving by myself when I’m in a car (yes, I’m that dork) or when I’m in my office at work with the door shut). I’ve gotten used to it. When we had to start wearing them, I never thought I would.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    JustaNoob wrote: »
    I'm not super opinionated about this. For me, 2020 was just so exhausting that I could not keep up with all of the information being thrown at me. Normally, I am a thinking person who would try to see both points of view and then make informed opinions but I'm not a scientist and I didn't have the capacity to keep up with everything.

    So I got my first Covid shot last weekend. I am so past the stage of trying to decipher everything and more in the "just tell me what I have to do and I'll do it" stage.

    Honestly, we CAN'T be experts in everything we need to be. I'm all for people taking their scientific and medical literacy into their own hands and learning how to interpret varying sources of information, but I think part of the pickle we're in is that too many people are skipping the preliminary work and just deciding that they -- without any special effort -- are as qualified as people who work with viruses and infectious diseases all the time. There's no shame, IMO, in knowing that we don't know what we need to know and listening to people who do this for a living.

    There have been many times when I've read about a subject, not known what to do, and just gone to my doctor and asked for their help with a decision. Hasn't steered me wrong yet.

    There's too many people trying to apply their regular common sense and non-medical inferences to this subject and it's resulting in nothing more useful than some Facebook memes about how you shouldn't get a vaccine because if you ate it, it would hurt you.
    Which is, by the way, another lie. You could totally eat it and it wouldn’t hurt you.

    But I’ll bet it wouldn’t taste that good. 😉
  • 33gail33
    33gail33 Posts: 1,155 Member
    I've had the flu once as an adult. It was miserable. Much worse than I remembered from childhood. Spent $200+ on Theraflu. That was more than ten years ago, I've never missed a flu shot since, and I've never had the flu again. I know luck plays a role in that, the flu vaccine is less effective than the covid vaccines. But it stacks the deck heavily in my favor. I really don't like feeling crappy, this is a cheap, easy, and safe way to avoid it.

    Every year I would get sick, be miserable, and promise myself that "next year I will get the shot". And then I never did. This past fall there was a big push on for everyone to get their flu shot and my doctors office had a walk in clinic so I did get it, hopefully I will keep it up from now on.
  • pfeiferlindsey
    pfeiferlindsey Posts: 163 Member
    I've had the flu once as an adult. It was miserable. Much worse than I remembered from childhood. Spent $200+ on Theraflu. That was more than ten years ago, I've never missed a flu shot since, and I've never had the flu again. I know luck plays a role in that, the flu vaccine is less effective than the covid vaccines. But it stacks the deck heavily in my favor. I really don't like feeling crappy, this is a cheap, easy, and safe way to avoid it.

    I wouldn't wish flu on my worst enemy. Not sure which was worse...the 104 degree fever for multiple days, the infection afterwards that caused me to cough up green stuff for over a month, the impetigo that caused sores from my nose to my chin. And I'm a fairly healthy person overall. I wanted to die.

    If COVID is "just another flu" (PSA, it's not), no thank you. I'll get my vaccine for both.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    JustaNoob wrote: »
    I'm not super opinionated about this. For me, 2020 was just so exhausting that I could not keep up with all of the information being thrown at me. Normally, I am a thinking person who would try to see both points of view and then make informed opinions but I'm not a scientist and I didn't have the capacity to keep up with everything.

    So I got my first Covid shot last weekend. I am so past the stage of trying to decipher everything and more in the "just tell me what I have to do and I'll do it" stage.

    Honestly, we CAN'T be experts in everything we need to be. I'm all for people taking their scientific and medical literacy into their own hands and learning how to interpret varying sources of information, but I think part of the pickle we're in is that too many people are skipping the preliminary work and just deciding that they -- without any special effort -- are as qualified as people who work with viruses and infectious diseases all the time. There's no shame, IMO, in knowing that we don't know what we need to know and listening to people who do this for a living.

    There have been many times when I've read about a subject, not known what to do, and just gone to my doctor and asked for their help with a decision. Hasn't steered me wrong yet.

    There's too many people trying to apply their regular common sense and non-medical inferences to this subject and it's resulting in nothing more useful than some Facebook memes about how you shouldn't get a vaccine because if you ate it, it would hurt you.
    Which is, by the way, another lie. You could totally eat it and it wouldn’t hurt you.

    But I’ll bet it wouldn’t taste that good. 😉

    Also, how would you log it? I'm guessing the calorie/macro information would be really hard to find.
  • qhob_89
    qhob_89 Posts: 105 Member
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    JustaNoob wrote: »
    I'm not super opinionated about this. For me, 2020 was just so exhausting that I could not keep up with all of the information being thrown at me. Normally, I am a thinking person who would try to see both points of view and then make informed opinions but I'm not a scientist and I didn't have the capacity to keep up with everything.

    So I got my first Covid shot last weekend. I am so past the stage of trying to decipher everything and more in the "just tell me what I have to do and I'll do it" stage.

    Honestly, we CAN'T be experts in everything we need to be. I'm all for people taking their scientific and medical literacy into their own hands and learning how to interpret varying sources of information, but I think part of the pickle we're in is that too many people are skipping the preliminary work and just deciding that they -- without any special effort -- are as qualified as people who work with viruses and infectious diseases all the time. There's no shame, IMO, in knowing that we don't know what we need to know and listening to people who do this for a living.

    There have been many times when I've read about a subject, not known what to do, and just gone to my doctor and asked for their help with a decision. Hasn't steered me wrong yet.

    There's too many people trying to apply their regular common sense and non-medical inferences to this subject and it's resulting in nothing more useful than some Facebook memes about how you shouldn't get a vaccine because if you ate it, it would hurt you.
    Which is, by the way, another lie. You could totally eat it and it wouldn’t hurt you.

    But I’ll bet it wouldn’t taste that good. 😉

    Also, how would you log it? I'm guessing the calorie/macro information would be really hard to find.

    I’d just use the database entries for rat poison and bleach... be sure to double the serving size of both to be sure you aren’t underestimating. Close enough!

    On second thought, if you request the keto friendly version that’s also gluten and dairy free, you may want to ask for an ingredient list to ensure accurate logging!

    Hope this helps! 😙
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 5,958 Member
    edited March 2021
    I wouldn't wish flu on my worst enemy.

    Had the flu once in my life. Was probably the worst I have ever felt. Hot on the outside, freezing on the inside. My bones ached. My arms and legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Everything hurt. I was 27 and bounced right back. Would not want to have to do it again at 49...
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,048 Member
    edited March 2021
    nooshi713 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    "Results from the long-awaited US trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine are out and confirm that the shot is both safe and highly effective.

    More than 32,000 volunteers took part, mostly in America, but also in Chile and Peru.

    The vaccine was 79% effective at stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing people from falling seriously ill."


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56479462

    Don't suppose even these remarkable results from a very large trial will influence the dimwits opposed to vaccinations but should reassure those that are on the fence or have genuine concerns.

    Also, news reports are saying that they specifically looked for the blood clotting issue some of Europe has been concerned about. They saw zero instances. This doesn't mean it doesn't happen - the report I heard was careful to say that - but it does mean that at worst it's *extremely* rare.

    The data that caused panic in Europe showed 7 people out of 1 million developed a blood clot. The incidence of blood clots in the general population is 1-2 people per 1,000. Many people develop blood clots for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the vaccine. Many people got freaked out over nothing!

    While I completely agree with you, there is an added detail. The point of concern was the incidence among vaccine recipients who were also young women, not the most likely blood clot group but not unheard of either, obv. So the relevant comparison was to young women, not gen pop. But the incidence rate checked out as not problematic.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,718 Member
    nooshi713 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    "Results from the long-awaited US trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine are out and confirm that the shot is both safe and highly effective.

    More than 32,000 volunteers took part, mostly in America, but also in Chile and Peru.

    The vaccine was 79% effective at stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing people from falling seriously ill."


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56479462

    Don't suppose even these remarkable results from a very large trial will influence the dimwits opposed to vaccinations but should reassure those that are on the fence or have genuine concerns.

    Also, news reports are saying that they specifically looked for the blood clotting issue some of Europe has been concerned about. They saw zero instances. This doesn't mean it doesn't happen - the report I heard was careful to say that - but it does mean that at worst it's *extremely* rare.

    The data that caused panic in Europe showed 7 people out of 1 million developed a blood clot. The incidence of blood clots in the general population is 1-2 people per 1,000. Many people develop blood clots for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the vaccine. Many people got freaked out over nothing!

    I don't know if this is true, and I have no way of checking it out. All I can say was that the source was not ultra-fringe-y (it was a radio report I heard in passing, either NPR or BBC, talking to someone from the science community in Europe, I believe).

    What was said was that in the cases that caused concern, the *type* of blood clots were a part of what caused concern. IIRC, they said there was a "whole body" widespread aspect that made the cases especially unusual, and that the similarity to a symptom that had been seen in some severe (deadly) Covid cases, was part of the reason for extra caution.

    Like I said, I have neither sources nor expertise to evaluate this claim, but am mentioning it because others may have those resources.

    I completely agree with you (Nooshi) that looking at incidence of blood clots in a statistical sense, there was overcaution, possibly detrimental in a big-picture sense. At the time, I assumed there might be a PR aspect to this, i.e., if the cases are publicized in a sensational way, the authorities *not* reacting may feed conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy, in ways that will increase future odds of disease spread more than the pause for investigation. But that last was pure speculation on my part.

    It's tempting to assume, as a member of the general public, that European authorities were over-reacting and irresponsible, but I have a degree of learned caution about making assumptions when I don't have full details. In particular, listening to international (such as BBC) coverage of US events I'm quite familiar with, I have some sense that as one gets further from the sources, the coverage can get more broad-brush, to the point of leading to inaccurate conclusions.

    Again, I'm not advancing the "unusual type of blood clots" as a truth. It's a report I heard, for which I have no independent, authoritative confirmation.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,400 Member
    The story of one of the cases of death after the Astra vaccine is this: A military family man, 43 yrs old, in apparent good health, was vaccinated in the morning. He took his son to soccer practice as usual, and even played a bit with the boy. Late afternoon started to feel a little off, headache, etc., so took a Tylenol type tablet (as told to if there are light symptoms). During the night his wife said he suddenly felt awful and she called an ambulance. He died quickly.

    Now, the story was told the day after by the widow on national TV. She said she was not against the vaccine, seemed very level-headed, but wanted to know what killed her husband. Now we still don't have the autopsy report--it was said it would take 2 weeks and now it's about that. The vaccinations were halted to stop panic. They needed more information to go forward. After a few days of study of the other cases, it was decided to proceed. I think they did the right thing, at least in Italy. It's a hard call.

    And yes, I will get the vaccine when I'm up (my BIL is a doctor and after all he's seen, you don't want to take your chances with COVID). I will take any of the vaccines, AstraZeneca included.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,023 Member
    The story of one of the cases of death after the Astra vaccine is this: A military family man, 43 yrs old, in apparent good health, was vaccinated in the morning. He took his son to soccer practice as usual, and even played a bit with the boy. Late afternoon started to feel a little off, headache, etc., so took a Tylenol type tablet (as told to if there are light symptoms). During the night his wife said he suddenly felt awful and she called an ambulance. He died quickly.

    Now, the story was told the day after by the widow on national TV. She said she was not against the vaccine, seemed very level-headed, but wanted to know what killed her husband. Now we still don't have the autopsy report--it was said it would take 2 weeks and now it's about that. The vaccinations were halted to stop panic. They needed more information to go forward. After a few days of study of the other cases, it was decided to proceed. I think they did the right thing, at least in Italy. It's a hard call.

    And yes, I will get the vaccine when I'm up (my BIL is a doctor and after all he's seen, you don't want to take your chances with COVID). I will take any of the vaccines, AstraZeneca included.

    People die unexpectedly, and when you have the whole world getting vaccinated at the same time, you're bound to have some of those unexpected deaths happen soon after but unrelated to the shot.

    So there's good reason to think it was almost certainly unrelated, but you also want to err in the side of caution. But you also don't want to slow vaccination rates when dealing with a global pandemic. I do not envy the people who need to make these decisions!
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    The story of one of the cases of death after the Astra vaccine is this: A military family man, 43 yrs old, in apparent good health, was vaccinated in the morning. He took his son to soccer practice as usual, and even played a bit with the boy. Late afternoon started to feel a little off, headache, etc., so took a Tylenol type tablet (as told to if there are light symptoms). During the night his wife said he suddenly felt awful and she called an ambulance. He died quickly.

    Now, the story was told the day after by the widow on national TV. She said she was not against the vaccine, seemed very level-headed, but wanted to know what killed her husband. Now we still don't have the autopsy report--it was said it would take 2 weeks and now it's about that. The vaccinations were halted to stop panic. They needed more information to go forward. After a few days of study of the other cases, it was decided to proceed. I think they did the right thing, at least in Italy. It's a hard call.

    And yes, I will get the vaccine when I'm up (my BIL is a doctor and after all he's seen, you don't want to take your chances with COVID). I will take any of the vaccines, AstraZeneca included.

    People die unexpectedly, and when you have the whole world getting vaccinated at the same time, you're bound to have some of those unexpected deaths happen soon after but unrelated to the shot.

    So there's good reason to think it was almost certainly unrelated, but you also want to err in the side of caution. But you also don't want to slow vaccination rates when dealing with a global pandemic. I do not envy the people who need to make these decisions!

    Yep! Correlation or coincidence does not equal causation. Even when accounting for the *rare* or more dangerous types of clots, the incidence is still less than in the general population.
This discussion has been closed.