Double Pfizered. I have a sibling who is down the rabbit hole with it all, and it's beyond maddening.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 3:59 am Double Pfizered. I have a sibling who is down the rabbit hole with it all, and it's beyond maddening.

My sibling was down that rabbit hole, too, then two of her best friends died from the virus. A married couple, in their 40s. She got her shots real fast after that happened.

I got Pfizered a pfew months ago. I’d been working as a covid tester (was laid off last month, but they’ve called me back and I resume the job today), and I felt it was important for me to get vaccinated, asap. Most of the younger people I worked with wouldn’t get it because they watch too many zombie shows and believe in conspiracy theories.

M.H wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 5:43 pmI suspect when our weak, risk adverse and effeminate ruling class mandate vaccine passports

I mean... It's their job to try to prevent the virus from spreading. What has this got to do with weakness?

I'd say the honor system-like policies ("we strongly encourage you to wear a mask in here if you choose not to get vaccinated, if you feel like it maybe, thx") placed in early June was a huge risk that failed.

All the hospitals and offices just now mandating the vaccine to workers waited too long. They pay you to be there, fuck your 'liberties'.

Double Moderna'd by mid-May. I was very cautious but not necessarily scared to get Covid the first time around, but after seeing India (as much as we have access to) the last few months I would definitely not be fucking around with this variant.

M.H wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 5:43 pm I'm currently unjabbed and quietly reticent to do so. I haven't heard a clear and convincing reason why anyone under the age of 50 w/out underlying health conditions (esp linked to respiratory issues) would seriously benefit. My understanding is that the vaccine minimises your personal risk of the virus causing you serious problems (but being young and healthy-ish does that too), but has a limited effect on reducing transmission rates (you'll be less likely to be coughing and spreading the virus, but if you have a mild or asymptomatic case then it makes little difference). So you can have both jabs, catch the virus and spread it unknowingly. If you want to minimise the risk the virus poses to you, cool. But that's as far as it goes.

There are a few misconceptions here. The first is that while the vaccines are not a guarantee against the delta variant, most studies show an 80 - 90% effectiveness. That means a vaccinated person is more likely to never get it at all. Of that remaining 10-20% there's a great chance of being asymptomatic, a fair chance of getting mildly sick and a small chance of getting bed ridden with flu-like symptoms.

The ability of the virus to spread from infected vaccinated people seems to still be an unsettled topic. The initial data indicates that a vaccinated person's body carries the same viral load (which one would infer means an identical level of contagiousness), but from what little data we have seems to still spread less.

What this amounts to is that being vaccinated is verifiably beneficial to you individually, and to public health as a whole. There seems to be a popular fallacious thought amongst the anti-vaxers, or the vaccine skeptical that since being vaccinated isn't proving to be a 100% guarantee against infection or spread, then it's not good at all. Fortunately in addition to being vaccinated, we can also wear masks. If we had a greater percentage of the population doing these things in tandem it would reduce spread and deaths significantly.

losthighway wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 8:04 am What this amounts to is that being vaccinated is verifiably beneficial to you individually, and to public health as a whole.

End of story.

Most of my colleagues are based in India, largely Delhi and Gurgaon, and April/May was terrifying, really horrible. We were busy in April, and watching the attendees drop off the daily calls one or two at a time was scary. More than half the team (already working from home) fell badly ill, several ended up in ICU, and one died. He was still in his thirties and had kids. Both my colleagues in my own team had to take over a fortnight off, one got a lung infection which was a close run escape; she managed to stay out of hospital and was popping antibiotics for a month afterwards to tackle some lung infection that snuck in.

I heard about horror scenes at hospitals with colleagues arriving with family members to see people just begging to be allowed in to get someone treated, and nighttime anxiety attacks with spouses waking up terror-struck.

One afternoon a colleague I know well asked if we could have a brief chat in 15 minutes. Half an hour later he called, apologising for being late: “sorry, we just had a call and a close family member has just died.” He then went on talking about work, brushing off any suggestion he forget about our stupid numbers and attend to family.

This near-rant’s purpose is nothing other than the obvious: this virus is murderous. Perhaps the circumstances that made the situation in India particularly bad were unique to then and there, but I don’t doubt that we’ve been kept from even worse in the U.K. by luck alongside the toil of all involved in healthcare and hygiene here.

I'm not - the bureaucrat jackass running my country has been rolling them out really slowly, and I'm not in the age demographic that's getting them yet.

My parents have both got it, and I'm glad, because they're heavy smokers, I can't imagine what it would do to them.

I can’t stand the “it’s my choice” argument, because the it’s-my-choice crowd never, ever actually accepts the risks. When faced with serious consequences, every last one of them calls their doctor, calls 911, rushes to the ER, begs for medication, accepts ventilation.

M.H wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 5:43 pm I haven't heard a clear and convincing reason why anyone under the age of 50 w/out underlying health conditions (esp linked to respiratory issues) would seriously benefit.

I don't want to dog-pile or anything, but this anecdote shocked me: my girlfriend has a friend in his early 20s who caught it from a stranger, and now he can't stand up for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. His lungs are destroyed. All the long-term covid unit he's been referred to want to do is make him 'eligible for work' again. It's grim.