Most Unvaccinated Americans Don't Want Shots: AP-NORC Poll (apnews.com) 657
Most Americans who haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19 say they are unlikely to get the shots and doubt they would work against the aggressive delta variant despite evidence they do, according to a new poll that underscores the challenges facing public health officials amid soaring infections in some states. AP: Among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say they probably will not, and 45% say they definitely will not, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 3% say they definitely will get the shots, though another 16% say they probably will. What's more, 64% of unvaccinated Americans have little to no confidence the shots are effective against variants -- including the delta variant that officials say is responsible for 83% of new cases in the U.S. -- despite evidence that they offer strong protection. In contrast, 86% of those who have already been vaccinated have at least some confidence that the vaccines will work.
That means "that there will be more preventable cases, more preventable hospitalizations and more preventable deaths," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University. "We always knew some proportion of the population would be difficult to persuade no matter what the data showed, (and) a lot of people are beyond persuasion," said Adalja. He echoed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky in calling the current surge "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because nearly all hospital admissions and deaths have been among those who weren't immunized.
That means "that there will be more preventable cases, more preventable hospitalizations and more preventable deaths," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University. "We always knew some proportion of the population would be difficult to persuade no matter what the data showed, (and) a lot of people are beyond persuasion," said Adalja. He echoed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky in calling the current surge "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because nearly all hospital admissions and deaths have been among those who weren't immunized.
Bad Use Of Polling (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose if these results said something contradictory, I would say this poll is insightful.
Not wholly true (Score:5, Interesting)
The vaccines are abundant in the US at this point. If you don't have one, you don't want one.
I know a number of people that may get one - IF Covid continues to be an issue, and AFTER some time has passed so any potential side effects are more well known (around a year more is what I've heard).
I got vaccinated as soon as I could because I like to travel and the potential downside of being unvaccinated outweighed what I saw as pretty unlikely negative side effects.
But if I never travelled and mostly stayed at home, I too would probably have erred on waiting for more time to pass to be sure - not even of side effects but also which vaccine might be overall most effective long term. That's a pretty reasonable take.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem being that if a sufficient number don't get vaccinated, there's no herd immunity, and the problem persists. So really, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not wholly true (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you be terribly offended if I asked you to post the actual data supporting that claim?
I've heard lots of people claiming that. I have not seen ANY data to back it up.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Informative)
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-generated-from-covid-19-vaccines-differs-from-an-infection/ cites a study that found that the vaccines provide broader protection against variants than immunity acquired from infection.
There's a lot more. That one was just the top link returned by a Google search for "covid natural immunity vs vaccination".
Re:Not wholly true (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point, we're actually pretty certain that herd immunity as an argument to sell vaccination programs to the masses was just another white lie, where truth got sacrificed on the altar of expediency and convenience. Germans for example have now publicly admitted to it:
https://www.spiegel.de/interna... [spiegel.de]
Basically, "communications experts" on the relevant committees have massively overplayed their hands and relevant messaging was often so condescending and hostile , and we went from excitement that we're finally getting vaccines to fatigue. We're also seeing this across countries with very different cultures, so "country x has a problem with anti-vaccination movement and this is stopping the current programs" argument is simply incorrect. We're seeing this everywhere from US to Germany to Russia, for a number of different reasons. But one unifying factors seems to be the messaging style that "communications experts" appear to have copied from each other across borders, resulting in the same reaction of massive initial wave of vaccinations, followed by hardened resistance by large minorities that those campaigns didn't just fail to convince. But instead hardened their opposition to getting vaccinated.
And frankly, I can understand why. If you're already doubtful and well informed that all current vaccines operate on unknown medium to long term safety record (no time to form one) and are still experimental, every officially sanctioned authority parroting each other that "they are totally safe to use" is going to make you believe that they must be hiding something. After all, why would they all lie using exact same phrases otherwise?
Essentially, I think that the "let's pretend they're safe" white lie rather than the truth of "this is experimental, negatives we're seeing from vaccines are effectively nonexistent compared to consequences of actually getting covid, so instead of waiting for covid to get you, you should get vaccinated" was the wrong way to go with communications. Because we're now seeing that the important group to convince wasn't the "idiots who don't get it" but "sceptics who do get it but lack context and people who follow them". By focusing on the former in messaging, we got that large initial demand from people who didn't need much convincing, and lost the long war on convincing those that would actually be hard to convince.
And we're going to keep paying for this problem for a while. The same people who failed us on this one are now starting to openly debate just how authoritarian they can go with forcing vaccinations on people. And that is a discussion that is not going to end well for society as a whole. Witch hunts are the last thing society needs.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Informative)
There will be no 'herd immunity' break though cases are to common. Even the CDC is starting to admit vaccinated people that are exposed for any prolonged period stand a pretty high chance of contracting covid.
Point of clarification, everyone will get covid-19! Vaccines don't stop you getting covid!
Vaccination for any disease means you will either be asymptomatic, not horribly sick if symptomatic, or most likely not die when you get infected. Polio, Mumps, HPV they all infect us even though we are vaccinated!
This can't be repeated enough as what you wrote above is why the anti-vaccine people completely misunderstand what vaccines do and continue the narrative of "Why bother"...
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't quite true. Some vaccines confer sterilizing immunity, which means that if you've been vaccinated, you don't spread the disease.
So while you're right that the vaccine might not protect you from contracting the disease, if enough people are vaccinated and *can't spread* the disease, you eventually reach a point where many people have NEVER had the disease. It's likely that I've never contracted measles, because herd immunity is sufficiently high that it just isn't floating around in the world enough for me to come into contact with it.
Vaccination as a group strategy is even more important than vaccination as an individual strategy.
But yes, you're right. At this point, it's fairly likely that anyone that's vaccinated is still likely to contract the disease if they're not taking additional precautions.
For my part, I plan to wear a mask when I go indoors from now on. I haven't had a cold or the flu in 18 months, and I want to try and extend that as long as possible. The reality is that the flu FUCKING SUCKS, and I don't care that it won't kill me, I don't want it.
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For my part, I plan to wear a mask when I go indoors from now on. I haven't had a cold or the flu in 18 months, and I want to try and extend that as long as possible.
This is amazing and I agree with you completely.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:4, Interesting)
Examples of group strategy (Score:3)
Israel, with 60% vaccinated, and the California prison system, with 75% antibody positive, both saw 98% drops in their case rate. Other successes:
https://www.sciencenews.org/ar... [sciencenews.org]
https://globalnews.ca/news/778... [globalnews.ca]
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be claiming that because the vaccine just makes it much harder to get the virus rather than impossible, that it means that herd immunity won't work. That's not how herd immunity works. If everyone is vaccinated, then the virus will be eliminated. If the virus hadn't been spreading uncontrollably in the first place, then there wouldn't be a Delta variant. I'm getting so sick of all these idiots who just refuse to do the right thing.
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So who cares? It's people want to risk not getting vaccinated now that is on them.
I agree, so long as we change health insurance underwriting to make voluntarily unvaccinated people personally pay (without government or employer subsidies) the entire cost of risks involving COVID-related illness.
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But if I never travelled and mostly stayed at home, I too would probably have erred on waiting for more time to pass to be sure - not even of side effects but also which vaccine might be overall most effective long term. That's a pretty reasonable take.
So you're one of those idiots. [twitter.com]
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought you were going to cite some research on the fact that there has never been a vaccine in history that didn't show side-effects within a couple of months, but I guess that works too.
Funny how the people afraid of medically dubious potential long-term vaccine side effects aren't afraid of COVID19's well-known long-term effects...
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Re:Not wholly true (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a number of people that may get one - IF Covid continues to be an issue, and AFTER some time has passed so any potential side effects are more well known (around a year more is what I've heard).
You know, I was hoping this was a parody:
https://www.theonion.com/hesit... [theonion.com]
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Interesting)
I know a number of people that may get one - IF Covid continues to be an issue, and AFTER some time has passed so any potential side effects are more well known (around a year more is what I've heard).
I recently watched an interview/conversation with Dr. Offit where he flat-out said that, in the entire history of vaccines, there have never been any with long-term side effects. Any side effects that have ever come up, came up within like 1-2 months after the shot. At this point, with a sample set in the hundreds of millions, I think its safe to say that concern over long term effects is no longer reasonable.
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
Those long term set effects where probably for drugs you take on an ongoing basis, rather then something you only need to take twice.
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Now I dont know the context of what you watched but was it A) after a vaccine has gone through Phase 1 -3 clinical drug trials and been approved we have never seen long term side effects after 1-2 months or B) any vaccine after 1 -2 months in phase 1 has never shown any new side effects?
No, it was essentially, "The side effects show up shortly after vaccination. We've never had one where the side effects only appeared later".
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I know a number of people that may get one - IF Covid continues to be an issue, and AFTER some time has passed so any potential side effects are more well known (around a year more is what I've heard)
The second condition renders the first condition bullshit. The Delta variant is very much an issue, and yet they will wait.
These "people you know" are perfectly willing to be part of the problem, and they don't care.
Headline is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline is wrong.The largest group of Americans who aren't vaccinated is people who are under 12 years old, for whom the vaccine is not approved.
This is mentioned in the details:
Among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say ...
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Over 630,000 people are dead in this country from covid, and those are just the ones we know about. It has been estimated there are thousands more which were never counted for various reasons including deliberately not classifying those deaths as covid related. At the current rate of death, more people will have died from covid in less than two years than were killed in the four plus years of the Civil War.
and AFTER some time has passed so any potential side effects are more well known (around a year more is what I've heard).
More bullshit. Almost 200 million people in this country have been vaccinated. Any serious side effects would have shown up by now and oddly, those side effects have been reported.
The people you're supposedly quoting are just looking for excuses not to get vaccinated because I will bet come December, when the vaccines have been out for a year, they still won't get their shot(s).
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As soon as they passed the three phases of testing, I got one as soon as I could. I am not worried about side effects. The ironic thing is that I had fewer side effects from it than when I received a tetanus shot.
I just wish I knew why this specific vaccination is such an issue. We have had vaccines for decades, and I've never seen people marching in the streets about a polio shot, or a tetanus vaccine.
It cost me nothing, other than a little time, and it keeps me from infecting others. Hard to complain
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Well yes and no. It's true that this is the first mRNA vaccine (but not exactly true that it was "rushed" - it was expedited, which means they streamlined the administrative side, NOT the scientific/safety side)
The REAL problem is you have a nontrivial number of people who are openly encouraging others to not get this vaccine, and who are deliberately sowing misinformation and undermining trust. The cynic in me says they do it because they believe it will hurt people they don't like (read: liberals, minorit
Re:Not wholly true (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's part of the dumbification of America (and the World). But then you can't expect the general public to understand upper division probability and statistics. Or history.
The polio vaccine testing came under fire as well when a batch caused some issues during tests and Walter Winchell almost scuttled the whole thing by having an anti vaccine rant. But people were more scared of polio than the vaccine and it went ahead. The Salk vaccine did fall out of favor after an accident. And it reduced cases by only 80% (there are anti covid vaccine people who are wary that it's not 100% effective). But it saved a lot of lives and cases needing long term care. By all modern accounts it was a success.
The covid vaccines are better than Salk's polio vaccine. Better tested, better outcomes, more safety, more oversight. Yes, some people may have adverse reactions.
"Around a year more" is an extremely long time. There is a calculated risk involved. You wait a year, millions more people around the world die, are hospitalized, and possibly have long term health complications afterwards. History will say "what the fuck was wrong that they let millions die because they didn't want to have some rare chance of adverse reactions to a vaccine?"
But this is where the probability and statistics comes in. Weight the beneifts of having a vaccine with a chance of a negative outcomes, versus the outcomes from not having the vaccine with a change of even more negative outcomes. The anti vaccine people are essentially saying clearly that they think the covid-19 is less dangerous than the vaccine. Maybe they're still stuck in the mistaken mindset that it's just a bad flu? Also the economic factors weigh in, even those who think they're unlikely to ever become seriously ill from covid-19 are probably certainly hopeful that the economy opens up and becomes more normal, which it will NOT due until vaccination rates improve. These people who want to wait are not staying home isolated either, they are already out and about and unvaccinated (again, probably mistakenly think this is all a hoax or just a bad flu).
Right now the negative outcomes from getting a vaccine are either very mild ("my friend Janice was sick for a week"), or very rare with low correlation to the vaccine. The negative outcomes from not getting a vaccine are relatively high, from catching covid and needing hospitalization or worse, or catching it with mild or no symptoms and being a spreader to other people, and extended economic turmoil as anti vaccine people want this to burn itself out.
As for the Delta variant. Some people are convinced that the vaccine does nothing there so what's the point of getting a vaccine now after such a long wait... But it's not true. The existing evidence is that the vaccines do protect against the new variant, you will still be able to catch and spread it though, only your symptoms are greatly lessened. The 90%+ of new deaths and hospitalization are with unvaccinated people.
Really, there's no logical reason to avoid the vaccine if you don't not have particular medical conditions that prevent it (immuno-compromised, etc) In fact, those people who cannot get the vaccine are relying heavily upon the general populace to stop being dumbasses and get the shot!
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Tell these people to get shot.
FTFY :)
Re:Bad Use Of Polling (Score:5, Insightful)
That the unvaccinated remain stubbornly is obvious. But exactly why they remain so is not entirely obvious. Sure: you and I could probably have predicted the reasons (indeed, the pollsters probably did so when making the survey, rather than just open-ended questions), but the percentages were not predictable. It's those numbers that dictate where you may still be able to make some progress, and how to best target your efforts.
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How about to reduce the risk of dying or suffering long covid (like 1 million+ are in the UK).
Or to substantially reducing the risk of getting one of your friends or family killed etc.
You can either get a bit of the virus (the vaccine) without any long term study or you can get the virus without any long term study but we don't need long term study to know that there's a high risk of getting long covid and a slight risk of dying.
Re: Bad Use Of Polling (Score:5, Interesting)
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I get that it's fun to troll (Score:3)
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If you count the earlier mRNA vaccines approved by the FDA, before covid-19 appeared, there has been a lot of testing of the vaccine. Compare to the Salk polio vaccine which was hailed as a success despite a lower rate of effectiveness and accidental deaths due to a lab mixup. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are incredibly safe in comparison. That polio vaccine only had 1 year of trials, so at this point the covid-19 vaccines have had more testing overall.
You balance the risk of not being vaccinated to t
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Some vaccines are abundant. Here the only one available is the Moderna version.
Re:Bad Use Of Polling (Score:4, Insightful)
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Is that supposed to be a reason to not get an available vaccine? Lack of options?! Are people in your area holding out for some better offer? Moderna is just about the best out there:
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Well, but it still could have been a problem of convenient access or worry about losing time from work. It's good science to double-check things that seem obvious.
America is a big deal (Score:2)
America is a big deal. Just ask any American!
Wherever could people have gotten the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
that the vaccines are not effective against variants?
Gee. That's a mystery.
It certainly couldn't have been the scaremongering about "double mutants" and such that began almost the very same day that the first shots were administered. And it couldn't possibly be the constant hyping up of every single positive test in a vaccinated individual.
Stupidity (Score:2)
Civilization has no recourse. Most of these were the first ones to get scared about Ebola because it had a high death rate and seemingly scarier symptoms.
"... Begging For A Covid Vaccine" (Score:2)
I'm reminded of this video. [youtu.be]
It's amazing what suffering can do to change a mind.
In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words: stupid and selfish.
This is why we can't have nice things!
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
For the fucking thousandth time: it is not only themselves they put at risk! Children cannot yet have vaccines. Immunocompromised people may not be protected after vaccination. The vaccines are not 100% effective - the vaccinated have some residual susceptibility. Every asshat that "wants to take that risk" is also putting those other people at risk.
Furthermore, the larger the population of unvaccinated petri dishes out there, the higher the chance that sooner or later the virus will evolve around the present vaccines. And then the asshats have taken protection away from the vaccinated.
Outside the realm of public health: if we continue to have this simmering pandemic, it will continue to be a drag on the economy, which affects the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated.
I stand by my previous comment: it is selfish.
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
What frustrates me is the political divide. It's funny to watch the Republican leadership start telling people to get vaccinated. Nate silver covered why. A good 60 or 70% of people are vaccinated and they're pretty pissed off at the ones who aren't getting vaccinated, so it's no longer good politics to spread anti-vaxx Hysteria, and more importantly the damage has already been done to the economy and the country, so that voters will blame that damage on the guy in the White House and his party come to midterms.
But that's sink in by the way. A major political party heavily discouraged people from seeking life-saving medicine so that they could have a political advantage in a midterm election.
I work public K-12. (Score:5, Interesting)
Kids are all little fucking Typhoid Maries at the best of times. He's not saying the kid will die he's saying they're a carrier for the fucking disease and very likely to spread it to others. It's weird to me that you fixated on only one part of what they said, and it wasn't what they meant at all.
In my district they're tiptoeing around requiring the vaccine because it's not popular with our primary demographics; instead of fucking requiring it like they do for everything else. That includes staff not just kids who are old enough.
You have many teachers who are in vulnerable groups getting exposed to rooms full of unvaccinated kids, in ancient buildings with shared forced air systems that can't filter anything out. Kids who will be infecting each other, likely without symptoms, so they can accidentally kill grandma later.
I don't understand why this shit so fucking hard for people to understand -
- I know that's the basis for our entire society, maybe that's why. It's a public health nightmare and a lit fuse on making this shit worse than it already has been.
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Heck, they're more likely to die from silly things like staph infections from improperly sterilized needles on the vaccine or from the very real but slim chances of myocarditis from the vaccine than from covid.
This is complete bullshit. I'm living near a children's hospital full of covid patients, all children, and all evidence points towards them overflowing early next week. You really need to stop repeating stupid shit you hear from asshole entertainers who are lying to you. [npr.org]
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>their body, their choice
That would apply if it were something like smoking. Then they die of lung cancer. As believers in "individual responsibility", I am just certain they will liquidate their IRAs to pay for the cancer treatment instead of sticking Medicare with the bill.
The point you're missing is that COVID is contagious. It spreads from person to person. There are very few lighthouse keepers out there. Everyone else breathes around other people. Those human Petri dishes will be breathing around my
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NIH seems to disagree with the ministry as of January 2021.
Health care workers (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the larger categories of vaccine hesitant. What's up with that?
Re:Health care workers (Score:5, Insightful)
Health care workers means everything from doctors (96% vaccinated) to minimum wage home health aides.
Not all are educated like nurses are, and many are from ethnic groups that have bad histories with the medical establishment.
Health care workers may have seen bad things from 1.0 products in the past. Now, anyone with an engineering background can look at the Pfizer teardown at berthub.eu and see it's years past a 1.0 product, but these are not people with engineering backgrounds.
Re:Health care workers (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're in the circles where people actually see and talk about the 1-in-a-million outcomes, they sometimes have an outsized impression of how often those situations occur. Most doctors have a decent grasp on statistics that helps them keep things in perspective, but that isn't always as true of nurses or other staff (e.g. phlebotomists, lab techs, etc.), so while most nurses and other ancillary staff are awesome, you can still find a sizable portion who think the worst in any situation or who will immediately start looking for zebras [quoteinvestigator.com]. A few hundred healthcare workers in the Texas Medical Center were actually just fired/resigned a few weeks back because they refused to get the vaccine. It was a small portion out of the total number of workers there, but it was odd enough that it made national news when the courts said that they were not wrongly terminated.
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You may be relatively safe from dying from COVID (although the vaccine is still much less likely to kill you), but have you taken into account the danger of long COVID which effects 10%-50% of people who get it.
We *can* makeprogress--make unvaccinated PAY (Score:5, Interesting)
Mandates for vaccines are astonishingly effective.
**Health care organizations are requiring caregivers to get vaccinate be fired. Very few of them choose to be fired.
**Vaccination rates are going up when you get denied entry to restaurants and other public venues when you are unvaccinated.
What we need to do is start ensuring that those who CHOOSE not to get vaccinated (I'm excepting medical exemptions) bear the cost and consequences of their choice.
Not vaccinated? Can't work here. Good luck finding another job.
Not vaccinated? Can't eat here. Can't take your kids to school here.
Not vaccinated? Your INSURANCE PREMIUMS WILL GO UP, YOU ARE WELCOME. FREEDOM ISN'T FREE.
Not vaccinated and you spread COVID? Guess what, you are LEGALLY liable, and the test will be whether a preponderance of evidence suggests you spread it to the victim suing you. Now you get to pay for damages, lost wages, wrongful death, hospital fees, from you negligently spreading COVID because you were unvaccinated.
Freedom ain't free folks. It's time to stop coddling the freeloaders.
--PeterM
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Indeed. My wife has cancer and, while in for her latest infusion, the attending nurse volunteered that she is finally getting vaccinated because she's taking her kiddos to Lego Land, where vaccination is a requirement. This is a provider who routinely works around severely immune compromised patients. WTF? Unfortunately, treatment is at a hospital in Oregon, where hospitals are specifically prohibited from requiring COVID vaccination (other industries can mandate vaccination).
Anti-American (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, not getting the vaccine means you're not a Patriot. You clearly don't want the country to recover economically, you are intentionally killing your fellow Americans, and you're weakening the Military. To say nothing of being anti-Family and anti-Christian Values. Anti-vaxxers are simply domestic terrorists.
Stop the expensive medical care (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the government handing out welfare, in the form of taxpayer funded medical care, to cover unvaccinated covid infections? Changing that would send hordes of these people to the vaccination centers.
In my area the vast majority of these vaccine resisters are Republicans thinking they are some sort of liberty outpost in a world of liberal government mandated control. I say let the free-market sort this out.
Human incubators (Score:2)
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:2)
It really is.
Bill Burr's conspiracy theory (Score:3)
I like Bill Burr's vaccine conspiracy theory:
The people getting the vaccine are the people who trust the government, not the free thinkers. So if the government wants to get rid of the free thinkers and be left with a compliant populace, they're not going to use a harmful vaccine. If anything, the vaccine would offer real protection against some deliberately released disease, which would have free reign to kill only the people who distrust the government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znI046F4FKg [youtube.com]
Vaccination should be a personal choice (Score:3)
I got the vaccine but I strongly oppose mandates. Vaccination should be a personal medical decision made between individuals and doctors.
Look, there are numerous authoritarian schemes we could dream up that might increase the life expectancy a year or two. But that doesn't mean we should do them. There is more to life than postponing death at all costs. There are other values, and you may be surprised to learn that striving for the longest life possible for the greatest number of people possible is not the value at the top of everyone's list. There are other value systems besides utilitarianism which you might want to consider before you allow yourself to be stirred to such hatred of your fellow citizens who are choosing not to be vaccinated.
Getting a shot in the arm and feeling lousy for a day or two is not a "sacrifice" for the greater good. We did it at least as much - and probably more so - for our own damn good. But boldly accepting some personal risk in order to preserve medical privacy for all and the right of free citizens to make their own medical choices - THAT is an actual sacrifice for the greater good.
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Why don't we get all these anti-vaxers to sign up to a database to declared they don't want vaccines and those that don't believe in COVID, that they they can be denighed hospital care if they get ill and the Gov can say sorrry but you don't believe in treatments and care.
This.
They should be required to be on a list similar to that of sex offenders. They're a pariah of society.
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That would unfairly penalize people of color. Only 36% of African Americans are vaccinated. Are you racist?
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Now this is interesting, why is that the case?
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Vaccination Rebates [Re:Why] (Score:3)
Why don't we get all these anti-vaxers to sign up to a database to declared they don't want vaccines and those that don't believe in COVID, that they they can be denied hospital care if they get ill and the Gov can say sorrry but you don't believe in treatments and care. [spelling error corrected]
That's not really a workable idea, but here's a variant. People who don't get vaccinated have a measurably larger cost to insurance companies. This should be reflected in the insurance cost: basically, everybody who gets a vaccination should get a cash rebate on their insurance equal to the amount of hospital costs that they won't incur.. Make it payable on the spot, and I'll bet you'll get a bunch of people starting to rethink their anti-vax beliefs.
In fact, also credit them with some of the cost they sa
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It should be out of pocket for all covid related expenses. It was their choice not to get vaccinated and, most likely, not wear a mask either.
If the government shouldn't pay for aboritions, the government shouldn't pay for people's covid bills.
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Your government doesn't pay for abortions?
Do they pay the get rid of other STDs?
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I'm not sure that you need to outright ban them from hospitals -- just adjust their health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs properly.
Umm... so how would they know they're being punished?
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There's a joke where a therapist wants an advance payment for sessions because the patient is suicidal. It's slightly better for hospitals to follow that paradigm rather than outright denying health care.
Thousands of years of medical ethics (Score:2)
That's why.
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To add onto your comment here, I'd like to suggest that part of this vaccine hesitancy is due to the privilege of modern healtcare giving these people a false sense of security in thinking the staff at the hospital will be able to stave off death for them. It's an inconvenient truth that depending on the safety net of the hospital system threatens to overwhelm said safety net in the same way if a dozen people jump off a building into one of those giant infla
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I doubt you can deny medical aid to someone. But have them pay for it.
Seriously, why the health insurance doesn't bail if you're not vaccinated is beyond me. They're usually the first to up your premium or exclude certain risky behaviour, simply because .... well, there's money to be made.
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Is your view dependent on taking money from people without providing anything?
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Why don't we get all these anti-vaxers to sign up to a database...
Because even in Republican states, [kff.org] you would be disproportionately targeting minorities.
Re:Why (Score:5, Interesting)
That said the majority of these people if they get their way would see the affordable Care act repealed and with it the protection for pre-existing conditions. So if these people win they're going to find out the hard way what it means to win. Covid has so many symptoms and so many side effects that once you have it practically anything can be called a pre-existing condition.
Re: (Score:2)
and don't bother calling the fire department or emergency services if you start a fire in your house.
Or do call them.... so they can make sure to protect your neighbor's homes only instead.
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Re:Don't want to be part of beneficial society? (Score:5, Interesting)
the surveys I have seen show almost no change in opinion when conducted in January and then followed up in June. Almost no-one changed their opinion in that 6 month period despite seeing example after example of people surviving the vaccinations. The only excuses I have seen that even provide some amount of information to work with are:
1) The FDA still has not approved it and only approved it for emergency use. This one has even high level admins at the CDC and FDA annoyed as they agree that this obstacle should not exist. The number of tests subjects in this vaccine 'trial' exceeds damn near every other vaccine trial combined. There is more data at hand to the efficacy, and side effects than damn near everything else. If they would do this one step and move it to officially approved, they could eliminate this one excuse. Its not like the FDA is stuck once they approve something. After all they have pulled things off the market when new data suggests the need.
2) The new re-masking policies for vaccinated people prove that the vaccines do not work. This one just needs to go away. The only non-vaccinated I even have any concern for are the under 12 group and the ones who are medically excluded from vaccinations. By feeding this propaganda with overkill masking policies, you set the stage for a lifetime of mask mandates so long as vaccinations remain optional.
Make it a school requirement. Make it a employment requirement for Federal workers. Make it a requirement for any interstate mass transit like Train and Airplane travel so they dont transplant outbreaks in a matter of hours. Make it an employment requirement for healthcare workers. What kind of message does it send when nurses in the hospitals working with covid patients refuse to get vaccinated for these same lame 'I am not sure its safe' crap some 100 million vaccinations later? If medical people show a lack of faith in a vaccine, what hope is there for everyone else? Even if the federal government lacks the authority to mandate civilians get vaccinated, they DO have the authority to require it for interstate and international travel. They DO, as an employer, have the power to mandate vaccinations for Federal Workers. I have read several articles interviewing prominent lawfirms that represent HR departments and labor unions that have attested that yes, an employer can mandate vaccinations for those without medical exclusions and not violate the ADA by doing so.
Aside from those unable to get protection due to age or medical exemption, I honestly no longer care about those who voluntarily forgo vaccinations. As close to 100% of all mortalities right now are among the unvaccinated. Nearly, but not all, hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated. I just hope its their health insurance companies footing the bill for their hospital stays. You can bet they will start putting higher copays and co-insurance for unvaccinated or jack their premiums up. Humana already set that precedence with their monthly premiums tied to their fitness program. Earn X number of points and save X off your premiums. Dont earn those points and pay nearly double what everyone else pays. The employer almost always passed that cost straight onto the employee. If they can do that for going to the gym, they can do that for having a vaccination and the courts likely will uphold their right to pay less for you not taking appropriate preventative measures. Right now the feds are still footing the bill for testing. They could flip that and only foot the bill for testing for vaccinated people, and those that have to get tested for work or otherwise have to pay out of pocket for their routine testing
Re: Don't want to be part of beneficial society? (Score:3)
Re:Don't want to be part of beneficial society? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't want to do your part to benefit society (and its safety)? Fine - you're also not allowed to use public roads, send your kids to public schools, and don't bother calling the fire department or emergency services if you start a fire in your house.
Good luck implementing a policy that would disproportionately deny public services to African Americans and Hispanics. [kff.org]
Re: (Score:3)
I tell you what, if you take away freedom and any government assistance to such individuals, then you agree that they should not have to pay any taxes (income, personal, property, etc) whatsoever. Do we have a deal?
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You can't do that because they've already paid the taxes which pay for those services you've listed. We don't give people the option to opt out of society, and synonymous with that is an inability for society to exclude people. Feeling justified in depriving t
Re: (Score:3)
Why is such a Regressive suggestion be modded "insightful"?
Because he cares more about his righteous anger than he cares about people.
Re: (Score:3)
I love how you keep getting modded down despite being technically correct. That's probably the rub right there. They hate that you are still technically correct, in that such punishments to the unvaxxed would definitely hurt people of color in-proportionately more then white people, regardless of politics.
Re: Some groups refuse it (Score:2)
Nothing we cannot do anything. All solutions anyone has come up with are worse than the problem. Itâ(TM)s all up to Darwin now.
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Nothing we cannot do anything. All solutions anyone has come up with are worse than the problem. Itâ(TM)s all up to Darwin now.
This whole thing feels like it's Mother Nature's way of making its own Darwin's list.
Hopefully the climate change deniers will all end up on that list too.
I've been trying (Score:2)
I have some ties to red states and have sent letters to the editor that boil down to "Sure, you've got questions, that's fine, what does your doctor say to them?".
People sometimes trust their doctors when they don't trust public health authorities.
I don't see myself trying that line in person. For one thing there are no unvaccinated people in my circle. For another I may not have the patience.
Re:Charles Dickens at work (Score:5, Insightful)
One in five americans think the covid vaccine is used to implant microchips. [nationalpost.com]
The level of ignorance in the US cannot be overstated. This is the kind of belief I would expect from people in third-world countries, who don't have access to proper schools.
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When I first heard reports of that, I got really excited. I've been looking for these microchips that can fit in a needle all over the place. I can't find them on Mouser or NewEgg. Does anyone know where I can buy them? I have a project I'm trying to build I want to inject myself a lot.
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They have gone through complete Phase 3 trials and signoff by a non-government advisory panel. The same kind of panel where people resigned in protest over the Alzheimer's drug, so you know it's independent.
I've been looking, and have yet to see what actual added value there is in the formal approval process. Cites and analyses are welcome.
Re:Out of f*cks (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you probably still need to give a fuck, because the choices of the unvaccinated continue to effect society as a whole - including you!
Re: (Score:2)
I commend the purity of your hate.
Rest assured that there are anti-vaxxers who are gleefully waiting for you to die, and who fully expect you to be sterile now.
The yelling on both sides is past tedious. Neither side is willing to consider that individual risk profiles may differ. The vaccine may be great for the sickly and elderly, but seems to cause serious over reactions to the young and healthy. Honestly I think the vaccines need to be toned down for the young and healthy.
Re:Right. (Score:4, Interesting)
a vaccine that merely helps you keep an infection down to the level of mild symptoms and recover much faster is a overwhelming success in my book. Over 80% of all new cases right now are Delta variants. 98.9% of the hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, and 99.5% of all deaths are among the unvaccinated. Despite being a different variant, the protein the pfizer and moderna vaccines target is the spike protein. All SARS-CoV-2 varients share 75% of the same genetic spike protein makeup. So while not 100% matching, its still enough to trigger immune responses, hence why nearly all hospitalizations are reserved to unvaccinated. There is a lab in Israel that has indentified 18 existing medications effective at treating covid-19 and are awaiting approval. Two of which target the E-protein (or envelope protein) which all SARS-CoV-2 variants share 95% of their genetic makeup.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health... [nbcnews.com]
https://theconversation.com/us... [theconversation.com]
https://www.jpost.com/health-s... [jpost.com]
Data doesn't support "Reasons" (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at US States at random with data from CNN & Wikipedia:
Alabama, Trump voters: 62.03%, 33.9% fully vaccinated.
California: 34.4% Trump voters, 52.0% fully vaccinated.
Kentucky, Trump voters: 62.09%, 45.0% fully vaccinated.
In Michigan, 47.84% voted for Trump, 48.4% fully vaccinated.
In Oregon, 40.37% Trump voters, fully vaccinated: 55.4%.
New York, 37.74% voted for Trump , 56.3% fully vaccinated.
According to you, people may say they want to wait, but a much more reliable predictor is what side of the political fence they're on.