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
Options
Replies
-
SummerSkier wrote: »I think there are multiple camps on this issue. You have the pro vaccination group, the I am not going to get it because.. group, and the anti vaccination because it will kill you group. I agree with Kimny, I am also surprised that the US #s have dropped so rapidly, and I don't think it is possible that it is attributable to the vaccine but if a single dose gives some immunity or less severe cases perhaps it is? We did start this process in Dec.
The thing is, our case numbers dropped from the holiday spike, but they are still high. They just seem low because of what we just got through. We're at the levels we were last summer now, and still higher than we were in the fall!6 -
I have to wonder what the concern is for KHMcG.
He is 50ish years old and according to his profile his weight and cholesterol numbers were concerning to him and that's when he decided to do something about it and lose the the weight. He mentions that he has four children and would like to live to see his grandchildren.
With all that said, why would you not want to be vaccinated? Surely your children would like to see their parents live a few more years? If there's a way out, why on earth would you not take it?
Sure, cancer, heart disease, and diseases-yet-to-be-named (not to mention all the ones we do name) may still get ya, but
There is a way out.
Why.... I can't even....15 -
Vaccines are not stopping the spread. <snip>
Actually, cases in nursing homes in the US have plummeted since vaccinations became available to them, and restrictions on visitors have been loosened.
Considering less than a quarter of the US is vaccinated so far, and those eligible for the shot in most areas are people who were most likely staying home anyway, anyone who understands how vaccinations work wouldn't be expecting national case numbers over all to have dropped drastically yet.
a good chart to drive this fact home
15 -
I was born prior to there being a Chickenpox vaccine. I was exposed to them repeatedly as a child in elementary school, and even into Jr. High. I never got it. I never thought much about it after that. Flash forward to my 23rd birthday, the one I spent at home very, very ill with chickenpox and a horrible respiratory-possible pneumonia/bronchitis- infection. (I don't know for sure on the pneumonia/bronchitis, but I had pneumonia when I was 12 and this infection had much worse symptoms, so who knows.) The doctor wouldn't see me because he had a large number of elderly patients, so I had to tough it out and "monitor my symptoms" - wouldn't even give me a prescription for Zovirax. To him, it was just a run of the mill "you'll survive" recoverable illness. And yes, I did survive, but it was awful and frightening. I worked in a hospital at that time and was well aware of a 19yr old patient who, 3 months earlier, had passed away from complications of pneumonia and chickenpox. To say I lived in absolute fear for those 2 weeks I was sick would be a great understatement. The vaccine had been around for about 2 years when I got sick, but I didn't think I needed at that. I didn't work with patients and I was never around kids. I was a perfectly healthy young adult. Had I known, I would have definitely gotten that vaccine.
As soon as I am eligible to get the Covid vaccine, I will be there will bells on. I would take it right now if they would let me.
My cousin died of chicken pox when I was a kid. We all had it, 6 cousins. It's rare, but it does happen. (This was before the vaccine was available.) I was a nervous wreck when my 3 kids got it.3 -
tcunbeliever wrote: »Vaccines can't stop the spread until they reach a herd immunity level...at this point my state is only about 11% vaccinated, it's not enough to stop the spread...not even enough to considerably slow it...but as the percentage of population vaccinated increases, it will slow and then stop the spread of covid, it's just going to take a while getting to that point.
We're already seeing things get better - less spread.
At some point, long before we reach 80% innoculated for herd immunity, it will be getting rarer, and easier to track. If we're smart about contact tracing we'll be able to switch from mass vaccination to ring vaccination. We don't actually have to get to 80%.4 -
We are now vaccinating 80+ years, and moving to 75+ shortly. Those people are the most likely to get serious illness, yet the younger people are the most likely to spread it. So who should we vaccinate first? Now that long term care homes are done I am thinking it should be younger people who have to go out to work.
In my state (and I think this is typical for the US generally), it was: (1) healthcare workers, (2) over 65 (initially over 75) and front facing essential workers (i.e., people who have to work with the public in some way, can't stay home), (3) people with various pre-existing conditions that are risk factors, and (4) people who have essential jobs, but not front facing (I am in this group, it's 1c here).
I'm okay with this order.0 -
There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔2 -
The world is full of diseases. More are coming. I refuse to live in fear and I know we cannot control it.
Since when is getting vaccinated "living in fear"? Did you get vaccinated for polio, measles, etc.? (I won't ask about smallpox since we actually typically don't bc vaccines were so effective.)
In that most who refuse to vaccinate seem to be scared of the vaccine, I think you have the fear issue backwards.12 -
cmriverside wrote: »I have to wonder what the concern is for KHMcG.
He is 50ish years old and according to his profile his weight and cholesterol numbers were concerning to him and that's when he decided to do something about it and lose the the weight. He mentions that he has four children and would like to live to see his grandchildren.
With all that said, why would you not want to be vaccinated? Surely your children would like to see their parents live a few more years? If there's a way out, why on earth would you not take it?
Sure, cancer, heart disease, and diseases-yet-to-be-named (not to mention all the ones we do name) may still get ya, but
There is a way out.
Why.... I can't even....
Hey I'm open for conversation. Let's just not get into sweeping statements of what is true and not true. There is insufficient evidence to make these claims.
I would like to be around for my family. I cannot stop or prevent the enevitable and have accepted death will come. I am all for prevention when the risks are known and the result is reasonably proven. I did a little reading this afternoon. Lots of conflicting information. Experts are warning against sweeping statements.
Some of the most alarming expert advice is that even once vaccination is at a very high rate we will still be masking. For me I am not interested in living 20 to 40 years like this.3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔
But with the dengue vaccine they are not actually getting it from the vaccine, it is basically priming their immune system so a subsequent infection is more serious, as is what happens when you contract dengue a second time. So basically someone could get the vaccine today, and two years from now if they get dengue for the first time a more severe case could be triggered because they have had the vaccine in the past.
So it doesn't really matter if it is a live vaccine, it is the immune response it triggers. Since there are different variants of dengue, I wondered if the same thing might happen if someone who was immunized for covid contracted a different variant. Keep in mind this is just me idly wondering, I don't know enough about viruses to even speculate if the same thing could happen.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »I have to wonder what the concern is for KHMcG.
He is 50ish years old and according to his profile his weight and cholesterol numbers were concerning to him and that's when he decided to do something about it and lose the the weight. He mentions that he has four children and would like to live to see his grandchildren.
With all that said, why would you not want to be vaccinated? Surely your children would like to see their parents live a few more years? If there's a way out, why on earth would you not take it?
Sure, cancer, heart disease, and diseases-yet-to-be-named (not to mention all the ones we do name) may still get ya, but
There is a way out.
Why.... I can't even....
Hey I'm open for conversation. Let's just not get into sweeping statements of what is true and not true. There is insufficient evidence to make these claims.
I would like to be around for my family. I cannot stop or prevent the enevitable and have accepted death will come. I am all for prevention when the risks are known and the result is reasonably proven. I did a little reading this afternoon. Lots of conflicting information. Experts are warning against sweeping statements.
Some of the most alarming expert advice is that even once vaccination is at a very high rate we will still be masking. For me I am not interested in living 20 to 40 years like this.
Wait, what? You are not interested in living 20 to 40 years if you have to wear a mask? Like you would rather die than have to wear a mask indefinitely?
I was just saying to my husband today that I wonder if it would be weird if I kept on wearing one, I didn't even get one cold this winter and I can't believe I used to just let random strangers breath all over me.15 -
cmriverside wrote: »I have to wonder what the concern is for KHMcG.
He is 50ish years old and according to his profile his weight and cholesterol numbers were concerning to him and that's when he decided to do something about it and lose the the weight. He mentions that he has four children and would like to live to see his grandchildren.
With all that said, why would you not want to be vaccinated? Surely your children would like to see their parents live a few more years? If there's a way out, why on earth would you not take it?
Sure, cancer, heart disease, and diseases-yet-to-be-named (not to mention all the ones we do name) may still get ya, but
There is a way out.
Why.... I can't even....
Hey I'm open for conversation. Let's just not get into sweeping statements of what is true and not true. There is insufficient evidence to make these claims.
I would like to be around for my family. I cannot stop or prevent the enevitable and have accepted death will come. I am all for prevention when the risks are known and the result is reasonably proven. I did a little reading this afternoon. Lots of conflicting information. Experts are warning against sweeping statements.
Some of the most alarming expert advice is that even once vaccination is at a very high rate we will still be masking. For me I am not interested in living 20 to 40 years like this.
You'd rather risk dying of a preventable disease than get a shot and wear a mask?
Interestingly, I haven't heard much conflicting info at all from actual experts. Considering the relatively short amount of time covid-19 has been with us, they are reaching a consensus on the important stuff pretty fast.
If you're more scared of wearing a mask in public than you are of dying in your 50s, then I'm not going to be able to understand your motivations. I'm 48 and I'd happily wear a mask in public for the rest of my life if it meant spending more time with my family, meeting new people, experiencing new things, and seeing my nephews grow up.12 -
Realistically, I don't see people in the US masking once most people have gotten the vaccine. Maybe stuff like if you have a cold and are traveling on public transit (this seems to have been a common practice among some of Asian birth in my city pre covid, from what I observed), but in terms of whenever one is inside or outside and can't easily distance, no way. (And public health recommendations are often more aspirational than realistic, so everyone doing the "nothing will change anyway, so I won't bother vaccinating" thing are being ridiculous, IMO. And likely weren't actually following the rules as they exist now in that there seems to be significant overlap between covid restrictions are bad and I won't follow them crowd and the anti vax crowd.)5
-
Vaccines are not stopping the spread. So, If you're afraid then vaccinate. Just don't impose your fear on me. If I get sick I'll stay home.
The whole "if you're afraid" line is so silly and overused at this point. Adults calling other adults the equivalent of a chicken like we used to do as 10-year olds is embarrassing. And honestly, it's not a particularly compelling argument once you are past elementary school. Taking care not to infect others during a pandemic that has killed over 2 million people worldwide is not living in fear. It is having enough intelligence and education to understand basic science and disease transmission.
One thing that really makes me irritated with the tired "living in fear" line, especially at this point, is the implication that the speaker knows more about *why* I do what I do, more about *what's inside my head*, than I do. That's just insulting, frankly, on top of being ridiculous.
I don't feel particularly afraid on my own account. (Fear is pointless, generally - waste of perfectly good time.)
I want to do what I reasonably can to avoid getting the virus, and avoid spreading it.
If there's any actual "fear" in my thinking, it's in the utter horror of the thought that I could get the virus, then transmit it to someone else who has severe consequences. I'm pretty healthy, despite also being pretty old (65), so there's a better chance I'd survive than for some people among my friends and relatives. That means there's also a chance of being an asymptomatic spreader . . . and from my reading, many of those infected have a period at the beginning where they don't have symptoms, and can spread the virus.
(That's also why I'll happily continue wearing a mask in public for quite some time to come. It's not like I find it super annoying, really feel nothing much beyond the mild inconvenience of remembering. I feel like some people I know are a bit "princess and the pea" about masks, though I understand that some do have medical conditions that involve breathing problems, or genuine issues with claustrophobia or anxiety with a mask . . . all the more reason for me to wear one, when it's so easy for me, IMO.)
Giving someone else Covid is a much bigger deal to me, fear if someone wants to put it that way, than getting it myself. I fail to see that as a personal weakness.
P.S. Not intending to disagree with the post I quoted. Intending to expand on that thought.13 -
cmriverside wrote: »I have to wonder what the concern is for KHMcG.
He is 50ish years old and according to his profile his weight and cholesterol numbers were concerning to him and that's when he decided to do something about it and lose the the weight. He mentions that he has four children and would like to live to see his grandchildren.
With all that said, why would you not want to be vaccinated? Surely your children would like to see their parents live a few more years? If there's a way out, why on earth would you not take it?
Sure, cancer, heart disease, and diseases-yet-to-be-named (not to mention all the ones we do name) may still get ya, but
There is a way out.
Why.... I can't even....
Hey I'm open for conversation. Let's just not get into sweeping statements of what is true and not true. There is insufficient evidence to make these claims.
I would like to be around for my family. I cannot stop or prevent the enevitable and have accepted death will come. I am all for prevention when the risks are known and the result is reasonably proven. I did a little reading this afternoon. Lots of conflicting information. Experts are warning against sweeping statements.
Some of the most alarming expert advice is that even once vaccination is at a very high rate we will still be masking. For me I am not interested in living 20 to 40 years like this.
There’s actually plenty of evidence that what you are saying is NOT true. No experts are warning against making sweeping statements. There is not lots of conflicting information.
The actual experts are united in saying that people in high risk categories such as yourself need to get vaccinated as soon as possible, since any unknowns about the vaccine present a far lower risk of death than the disease.
Anyone who is telling you different is not a friend and you need to delete them from your social media and cut them off. Why would you stay friends with someone who lies to you?14 -
NorthCascades wrote: »There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔
But with the dengue vaccine they are not actually getting it from the vaccine, it is basically priming their immune system so a subsequent infection is more serious, as is what happens when you contract dengue a second time. So basically someone could get the vaccine today, and two years from now if they get dengue for the first time a more severe case could be triggered because they have had the vaccine in the past.
So it doesn't really matter if it is a live vaccine, it is the immune response it triggers. Since there are different variants of dengue, I wondered if the same thing might happen if someone who was immunized for covid contracted a different variant. Keep in mind this is just me idly wondering, I don't know enough about viruses to even speculate if the same thing could happen.
Do you understand the difference between a weakened live virus vaccine like Dengvaxia and the mRNA vaccine that is being used for Covid? I don't think you do.
2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔
The US stopped using the oral polio vaccine for this reason. We now use the inactivated polio vaccine. But I know the oral vaccine is still used in other countries.4 -
cmriverside wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔
But with the dengue vaccine they are not actually getting it from the vaccine, it is basically priming their immune system so a subsequent infection is more serious, as is what happens when you contract dengue a second time. So basically someone could get the vaccine today, and two years from now if they get dengue for the first time a more severe case could be triggered because they have had the vaccine in the past.
So it doesn't really matter if it is a live vaccine, it is the immune response it triggers. Since there are different variants of dengue, I wondered if the same thing might happen if someone who was immunized for covid contracted a different variant. Keep in mind this is just me idly wondering, I don't know enough about viruses to even speculate if the same thing could happen.
Do you understand the difference between a weakened live virus vaccine like Dengvaxia and the mRNA vaccine that is being used for Covid? I don't think you do.
I do! But I don't think the issue is the type of vaccine used, but rather the immune response that is being triggered, and remains indefinitely. It is somewhat unique to dengue I believe in that a subsequent infection often triggers a more severe illness, even if it happens years later. So the vaccine triggers the same immune status in someone who has never had dengue, so a first infection can be more severe.
So getting the vaccine for dengue if you have never had it will give you basically the same risk factors for having a severe case the next time, as if you had had it before. Where if you have had it before, the vaccine helps mitigate the severity. That is why they no longer recommend children who have never had dengue to get the vaccine.
From the WHO website I quoted upthread:
"Of note, it is not the vaccine itself that causes excess cases, but rather that the vaccine induces an immune status that increases the risk that subsequent infections are more pronounced."
Again I am not saying that this will happen with the covid vaccine. Maybe it is impossible I don't know.1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »There is no reliable evidence based study that links Gardasil to infertility just like there is no proof that other vaccines cause autism.
It is the same with the Covid vaccine. When you actually understand the physiology of the human body and vaccines, it makes complete sense.
Vaccines do not harm anyone. All they do is stimulate an immune response which happens naturally anyway when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria in the environment.
The Covid vaccine is a code for the spike protein of Covid. It is a piece of RNA, genetic material. You have a greater chance of being harmed through the body’s immune response to the actual virus than you do through the vaccine, which isn’t even a complete virus.
Naturally people want to find something to blame their infertility or child’s birth defects on. But, it is foolish and unfair to blame vaccines because that logic just isn’t sound.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it is universally true. A new Dengue vaccine did contribute the deaths of children in the Philippines not that long ago. I think dengue is kind of a unique illness where instead of becoming immune after the illness, you actually get sicker the second time you get it. So I believe the vaccine triggered more severe illness if those who had never been previously exposed got sick, and some children did die.
I actually thought about that when I heard that this vaccine was being kind of fast tracked - did they test it in people who had previously been exposed? Did they test what happened if you got Covid after receiving it?
I still wonder what effect the vaccine might have if you get exposed to a different variant. I know with dengue there is something called "antibody-dependent enhancement" where previous exposure actually makes the symptoms worse.
Since I already got my first shot I am hoping that Covid doesn't evolve that way as well. (Although I am not a virologist so maybe the coronavirus behaves totatly differently than the dengue virus - it is the only one I have heard of that does that.)
People get polio from the polio vaccine. It's rare, but it happens. That's completely impossible with the covid vaccines because they don't use a disabled virus they use the blueprint for the spike on the outside and nothing else.
When covid hit, the world was about a year away from complete eradication of polio. Then it got moved down on the priority list. 😔
But with the dengue vaccine they are not actually getting it from the vaccine, it is basically priming their immune system so a subsequent infection is more serious, as is what happens when you contract dengue a second time. So basically someone could get the vaccine today, and two years from now if they get dengue for the first time a more severe case could be triggered because they have had the vaccine in the past.
So it doesn't really matter if it is a live vaccine, it is the immune response it triggers. Since there are different variants of dengue, I wondered if the same thing might happen if someone who was immunized for covid contracted a different variant. Keep in mind this is just me idly wondering, I don't know enough about viruses to even speculate if the same thing could happen.
The first thing to remember about viruses like dengue, in which a prior infection increases the severity if you are later infected by a variant, is that this will happen whether you get the vaccine or the disease itself. So then the question with this sort of vaccine becomes, is getting sick from the currently circulating variants more of a risk than getting the vaccine and getting another variant later?
Most people don’t live in a part of the world with dengue. In places where it occurs, it’s not a constant killer, it has outbreaks. Someone would only get vaccinated if there was a good chance of them dying from a particular variant covered by the vaccine (which is formulated to protect from multiple variants), and little chance of encountering another variant. The doctors and drug manufacturers know this happens, they don’t just throw a random vaccine at everyone in hopes that everyone will get infected by a different variant and die. Doctors don’t like killing patients and drug manufacturers know that it’s bad for their reputations!
And, in fact, this is exactly what the situation in the Philippines shows. As soon as they figured out that the vaccine was increasing the severity of infection with other variants, they STOPPED recommending the vaccine to children who weren’t at risk from a specific variant.
The situation with Covid is different because Covid is not just an epidemic but a PANdemic which means it’s almost everywhere. It kills a large number of people in certain groups, such as the middle-aged and elderly, the obese, which is more than a third of American adults, and people with diabetes, which is about 1 in 8. It’s an actual emergency, which is why a vaccine not fully approved has been approved for EMERGENCY use.3 -
Vaccines are not stopping the spread. So, If you're afraid then vaccinate. Just don't impose your fear on me. If I get sick I'll stay home.
You better be at home right now, because 65% of current cases can’t identify a time when they were exposed, and most spread occurs when people have no symptoms.
I’m okay with you not getting the vaccine and staying at home for the rest of your life. But to say that you will only stay home if you feel sick, and otherwise you intend to do whatever you want regardless of whether or not you hurt others is irresponsible.17
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.6K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 387 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 913 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions