Tell me why I’m wrong - vaccinate the vulnerable then let it rip (1 Viewer)

robbiekeane said:

Title says it all really...inviting the challenge. Vaccinate the vulnerable, obviously let anyone who still feels uncomfortable the continue to shield, then just open back up.

Let life resume. Why is this the wrong thing to do?

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Given there’s no magic crystal ball to tell who is vulnerable you’re wrong.
Talking to a client last week who’s fit and healthy 20 something son got it, day 3 started coughing up blood, admitted to hospital, his lungs are now fucked. Friend of the wife, 40 something, got it before Xmas, just getting over the long Covid feeling getting back to normal then last week caught a cold and has all the symptoms again, went to get a PCR test and it came back negative but a common cold has triggered all the symptoms again. I now know 2 people in their late 40’s who have died from it, yes they were overweight although not morbidly obese but I also know people in a similar age group carrying more weight who got over it fully with no long Covid. I have a mate who’s 94 year old grandmother kicked it’s arse. You tell me the magic formula that predicts who’s going to get severe symptoms and who isn’t.
Given the success of the vaccine rollout not sure why you’d want to piss that up the wall now anyway when we’ve gotten control of the R rate and have a window of opportunity to vaccinate the entire adult population and get back to normal.

robbiekeane said:

Title says it all really...inviting the challenge. Vaccinate the vulnerable, obviously let anyone who still feels uncomfortable the continue to shield, then just open back up.

Let life resume. Why is this the wrong thing to do?

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I'm not sure I want to go here...

tbh one reason is the impracticality of what you suggest in terms of let anyone who still feels uncomfortable then continue to shield. Can that actually work wrt pubs, clubs, other areas? Once you add in partners of those who are uncomfortable, along with that, then it's probably totally impractical. On another level, how about if they have children and are uncomfortable? They can't, realistically, take their children out of education, so mitigation is needed there to protect the parents off the back of that, if they're uncomfortable.

So, if you could do it, and get those who wanted things opening up completely to cover the pubs, clubs, teaching jobs etc. then yep, do it.

But, there'll not be *that* long after vulnerable have been vaccinated before everybody has been offered the chance to be. We're talking a matter of weeks in a pandemic that's been running over a year.

As for afterwards, it's releasing things with caution to see what happens, anyway. It all *seems* to be good, but until the world has been done and / or we have some time to check results, we don't *know*. So it's a release and observe, which is eminently sensible.

And with that, I'm running away before I'm called a lockdown lover, told I want everyone to be scared, and told that actually nope, I have no mental health issues as a result of this.

I don’t have the science chops to fully explain it, but aren’t there concerns about letting it rip leading to new variants too? The potential for the virus to mutate and knacker the vaccine makes it more sensible to get herd immunity through vaccinations rather than through infections.

Dunno. Probably studies on it though I reckon that might explain it.

robbiekeane said:

Think this is a key point to me as well. “Offered the chance”. All this talk of covid passports and all that shit is outrageous. Why should someone be a social pariah if they don’t want to have a vaccine, so long as everyone who is clinically vulnerable has bad one?*


*had my vaccine first shot to be clear. No superpowers yet

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That door swings both ways. Why should people who don’t want to be exposed to the anti-vacs, anti-vaccine passport etc make they’re life choices based on other people’s tantrums. If someone is going to suffer it should be those who are part of the problem not those who are part of the solution. Everyone one has the right to feel safe at the cinema, pub, concert hall, football stadium, on a plane etc and if there’s people who don’t want to be part of that society then they should be the ones to feel the consequences of their actions not everyone else.

robbiekeane said:

Title says it all really...inviting the challenge. Vaccinate the vulnerable, obviously let anyone who still feels uncomfortable the continue to shield, then just open back up.

Let life resume. Why is this the wrong thing to do?


(Disclaimer: EDIT actually forget the disclaimer, we’re all adults )

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Take a look at what's going on in Brazil for the answer to that. It has essentially turned into a national Petri dish with new variants testing themselves out every day. The problem with COVID in particular is it's transmitted before people even show symptoms, which means that the traditional rules over viruses becoming more infectious but less deadly doesn't necessarily hold either.

That and you're lucky enough to have already had a jab, some of us quite want one but will have to wait until June or July for even the first jab.

robbiekeane said:

Yeh that’s a good point. So you’re saying that if the vulnerable were vaccinated it would be useless eventually because the more rampant the virus is the more it mutates which could make new variants so the vaccine wouldn’t work?

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Basically, yes. Although it doesn’t have to be variants that cause the problems. Look at Chile - they’ve got almost three times as much of their population fully vaccinated as we have. They bossed the initial rollout, the public responded by partying like it was 2019....and now they’re back in lockdown because hospitals are overwhelmed again.


Israel had a more cautious reopening and they’re doing great. No more lockdown for them. It seems counterintuitive, but it’ll now take Chile longer to get back to normal than it would have done if they’d waited a bit longer to reopen.

robbiekeane said:

Yeh that’s a good point. So you’re saying that if the vulnerable were vaccinated it would be useless eventually because the more rampant the virus is the more it mutates which could make new variants so the vaccine wouldn’t work?

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Basically yeah. Was listening to a woman who runs a project tracking new strains and she was saying places like India and Brazil are basically variant factories right now because of all the cases. Also saying how there’s loads of blind spots where we don’t have the sequencing to identify variants until they spread enough to get to a rich country.

Made me think that we aren’t going to be able to just vaccinate the west and call it a day. Same theory on a smaller scale with vaccinating the vulnerable. We aren’t safe until everyone’s safe. The next year we should really be pouring resource into vaccinating the next tier of countries and getting sequencing out into these places. I doubt we will though, foreign aid is a hard argument to make right now.

shmmeee said:

Basically yeah. Was listening to a woman who runs a project tracking new strains and she was saying places like India and Brazil are basically variant factories right now because of all the cases. Also saying how there’s loads of blind spots where we don’t have the sequencing to identify variants until they spread enough to get to a rich country.

Made me think that we aren’t going to be able to just vaccinate the west and call it a day. Same theory on a smaller scale with vaccinating the vulnerable. We aren’t safe until everyone’s safe. The next year we should really be pouring resource into vaccinating the next tier of countries and getting sequencing out into these places. I doubt we will though, foreign aid is a hard argument to make right now.

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Yeah the sensible thing would be to vaccinate us, then impose strict rules like in Aus / NZ, where life continues as 'normal' just about, but entry and exit in the country is tightly controlled, and any outbreak is jumped on swiftly.

We won't do that, of course, but it seems the best way to manage risk and allow normality.

robbiekeane said:

They will feel safe if vaccinated no?

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Only if/when enough people are vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. We’re not safe until we’re all safe. It’s as simple as that. I think we’re yet to discover the percentage to achieve herd immunity but for measles it’s about 95%, other illnesses are as low as 60%.

robbiekeane said:

I’m very fortunate to have had one and wouldn’t have had it if I didn’t quite want it also.

Isn’t the issue in Brazil that they’ve hardly vaccinated anyone?

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The issue in Brazil is they have a government who are in denial and continue to let it run riot through the country.

robbiekeane said:

I’m very fortunate to have had one and wouldn’t have had it if I didn’t quite want it also.

Isn’t the issue in Brazil that they’ve hardly vaccinated anyone?

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Brazil have let it rip, granted with a higher % of the population unvaccinated. Under 50s have around 1.5% chance of being hospitalised with COVID-if you take that across the 25 million or so people who are in that category, you're still going to end up with carnage in the NHS. The scientist in me wants us to see this out for good in a matter of months and have normality thereafter with booster shots every year.

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

For me, we are not getting back to normal unless the majority of those offered a vaccine take it. I'm still waiting for my first dose and I cannot see me getting it until June at the earliest, thanks to the media shitstorm of AZ blood clots; 70 out of 20 million I'll take my chances thanks!

robbiekeane said:

Jeez. When does it end. Is global herd immunity even achievable

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Not unless all the leaders of the more populous countries start taking it seriously. Bolsonaro should be on trial for criminal negligence

skyblue1991 said:

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

For me, we are not getting back to normal unless the majority of those offered a vaccine take it. I'm still waiting for my first dose and I cannot see me getting it until June at the earliest, thanks to the media shitstorm of AZ blood closts; 70 out of 20 million I'll take my chances thanks!

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I have complete confidence in the scientific community, more so now that I'm no longer in it It should be hailed that we have developed a vaccine with virtually 100% protection against serious illness for a novel disease in under a year, with minimal side effects. Turning it down because of the latter is akin to criticising an alchemist because the gold's got a bit of dirt on it

robbiekeane said:

Jeez. When does it end. Is global herd immunity even achievable

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skyblue1991 said:

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

For me, we are not getting back to normal unless the majority of those offered a vaccine take it. I'm still waiting for my first dose and I cannot see me getting it until June at the earliest, thanks to the media shitstorm of AZ blood clots; 70 out of 20 million I'll take my chances thanks!

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They are safe

Brighton Sky Blue said:

I have complete confidence in the scientific community, more so now that I'm no longer in it It should be hailed that we have developed a vaccine with virtually 100% protection against serious illness for a novel disease in under a year, with minimal side effects. Turning it down because of the latter is akin to criticising an alchemist because the gold's got a bit of dirt on it

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Isn't it right to say they tookavacinne already in development for something else and tweaked it?

It wasn't as rushed as people think.

Fairly sure there was a vacinne for one of the other epidemics, perhaps SARs, which they took a few short cuts on and it went tips up s this time everything has been done by the book.

skyblue1991 said:

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

For me, we are not getting back to normal unless the majority of those offered a vaccine take it. I'm still waiting for my first dose and I cannot see me getting it until June at the earliest, thanks to the media shitstorm of AZ blood clots; 70 out of 20 million I'll take my chances thanks!

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They’re as or more effective/safe as any other vaccine basically. The testing has been done, just in parallel rather than one after the other and most of the ten years normally is waiting not testing. There’s unsurprisingly been no wait for funding or lab space or anything else for a COVID vaccine.

clint van damme said:

Isn't it right to say they tookavacinne already in development for something else and tweaked it?

It wasn't as rushed as people think.

Fairly sure there was a vacinne for one of the other epidemics, perhaps SARs, which they took a few short cuts on and it went tips up s this time everything has been done by the book.

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Yep in the case of AZ it was a modified chimpanzee virus. The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna though are something new, certainly on this scale and by not using a 'live' vaccine probably explains why they have fewer side effects afterwards.

robbiekeane said:

Jeez. When does it end. Is global herd immunity even achievable

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Probably not but the closest you'd get is to heavily restrict movement from places that aren't taking it seriously like Brazil. Might make them take it more seriously if it massively hampers their trade given Bolsonaro's entire excuse is economy.

The question that I ask with regards to letting it rip through society, what happens when it rips through the police force, firefighters, teachers...rendering many incapacitated, possibly at the same time, even if just for a week or two?

I would also like to put forward the thought of the impact it would have on others suffering serious illness in hospital/hospice care and who cannot have people visit them due to the prevalence and risk of the virus being introduced (uncontrolled) into the hospital/hospice. Just this week one of my best friends sadly passed away following a short illness. For a week prior, he was alone, in hospital, his wife could not see him...I cannot begin to imagine just how he must have felt, to know he was facing the end and yet unsure if he could get to spend any precious time with his wife. Fortunately for him, he was able to go home to spend his final days.

skyblue1991 said:

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

For me, we are not getting back to normal unless the majority of those offered a vaccine take it. I'm still waiting for my first dose and I cannot see me getting it until June at the earliest, thanks to the media shitstorm of AZ blood clots; 70 out of 20 million I'll take my chances thanks!

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Don't know a great deal about it but from the little I know it seems they were able to get a head start from stuff for other coronaviruses that already existed and they'd be a lot more people working on it and funding available to speed it up compared to normal.

Still not ideal as no time to see any long term side effects but given the massive global impact the trade off hopefully will be justifiable. Just hope we don't get anything like the thalidomide problems.

But is shows what can be done if the will is there. Makes you wonder what could've been done in the past if stuff like AIDS and HIV hadn't had the stigma attached to it.

skyblue1991 said:

What are people's thoughts on the arguement of the safety of the vaccines, given they have been developed in only 9 months as opposed to the average 10 years?

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Posted this a few times

The biggest misconception is the work on the vaccine started when the pandemic began.

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And they had already developed a ChAdOx1 vaccine for Mers , which could train the immune system to spot the spike. The Oxford team were not starting from scratch.

"If this had been a completely unknown virus, then we'd have been in a very different position," Prof Pollard added.

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32 million have had a jab. They account for 99% of covid deaths by category.

If the vaccine works then surely at this point things have to go back to normal. Either that or we lock our doors for eternity.

Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:

32 million have had a jab. They account for 99% of covid deaths by category.

If the vaccine works then surely at this point things have to go back to normal. Either that or we lock our doors for eternity.

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Read the thread man. The worry is you let it circulate and we get vaccine resistant strains and are locked down forever (or at least until a variant vaccine can be produced and distributed). We should be fine come June, just need tight borders while the rest of the planet sorts their shit out.

shmmeee said:

Read the thread man. The worry is you let it circulate and we get vaccine resistant strains and are locked down forever (or at least until a variant vaccine can be produced and distributed). We should be fine come June, just need tight borders while the rest of the planet sorts their shit out.

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I'm trying to watch the game.

Some people have their lockdown agenda and I'm not getting involved in that. A slow lift until June is fine, but any longer than that then there is no argument for it whatsoever.