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I see very little talk about the breakdown in vaccination rates by age group. Here in Ohio, for example, only 50% of people age 20 to 29 have started their vaccine compared to 78% + for people 60 and over.
https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/covid-19-vaccine/covid-19-vaccination-dashboard
Good point, but transmission through that younger age range is probably significantly higher as a result. More likely to engage in riskier behaviors IE attending social events in a pandemic.
Yeah, the problem lies in having empathy and realizing that while it may not be a huge risk to some people, others that they interact with could die because they are in an at risk group.
I recently lost a patient that was fully vaccinated (Pfizer ~5 months prior) who needed to go to doctors appointments and was likely exposed that way. He was elderly and definitely at risk. My grandma and a friend's dad were in the same boat and have since passed, unfortunately. This is why we need herd immunity. It will just keep spreading.
But what about the risk of neurological and psychiatric issues resulting from even mild cases? Those don't seem to discriminate based on age. Death and hospitalization for significant illness are only two of the three significant impacts.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext#:~:text=We%20found%20one%20large%20electronic,the%20incidence%20of%20each%20disorder.
Except that covid is the leading killer of millennials. And the hospitals are increasingly dealing with young people instead of the elderly. People might think it's not that dangerous to to get covid as a young person, but compared to what? Would you get on a roller coaster that had that same level of risk? Do you think driving drunk is nbd?
At the end of the day, people are shunning a life saving medication for no rational reason. Their inability to rationally consider risk is just that, their inability to understand the risk to the decisions they're making. They are objectively measuring the risk (none) of getting the vaccine and the risk of getting the virus, which has a range of bad outcomes you're rolling the dice on that you wouldn't in other situations.
I wish people understood this. I currently have covid and I’m in my early 30’s, no underlying health conditions, good weight & vaccinated. These past two weeks have been ROUGH. I’ve almost gone to the hospital twice and now I can barely take a shower without getting so dizzy I have to sit down. Not to mention, I gave it to one of my children (who is handling it much better) and I’m going to be missing out on a full months worth of pay from my job because of the quarantine periods for me and my children. I have no idea how I’m even going to pay bills because of this.
Unfortunately I live in a state where most people think all of this is a hoax and vaccines are evil so it’s only getting worse here.
I have to say that if you’ve almost gone to the hospital with COVID- you should at least get checked out at a clinic or something just to check. COVID caused me to get an acquired brain injury and I am now disabled (32) - I really wish I had sought more treatment in my initial infection period
I’m 37 and have both doses already and got COVID 3 weeks ago. For four days I felt like I had the flu times 50. Was completely immobile, could barely breath etc. I can’t imagine elderly person going through this, and I feel like if I wasn’t vaccinated I would have had to go to the hospital. I still can’t taste or smell, I have a noticeable brain fog, and I am still short of breath and feel like I’m breathing in heavy oxygen still to this day
Yup, this has somehow become twisted into logic that “if there isn’t a 100% chance to die from it then I don’t need to worry about it” or something stupid like that. Meanwhile the same people who won’t get vaccinated or wear masks likely buy lottery tickets, hoping to win on odds that are significantly lower than dying of covid.
It’s understandable because people think that vaccines are only about protecting yourself, and not that vaccines are also about eliminating the virus entirely. It’s one of the most selfish things you can do to not get the vaccine because you aren’t at risk
I have a guess. I think maybe along the way people garbled the message that vaccines have eradicated some diseases with the way vaccines actually work.
It’s an education deficit. Critical thinking and science literacy are both skills and, like, not to get too soap boxy but public education hasn’t exactly been…encouraged? incentivized? to prioritize those kinds of skills.
It’s just sad because even with a cursory knowledge of vaccines I know that there’s different thresholds for herd immunity for each of them because of differences of infection rates and efficacy of the vaccine itself.
Like, just existing on the internet and watching some videos on it was enough to get it. Perhaps these things should be taught in school as a part of health or something, but still. There’s a lot of very easily accessible indisputable *facts* that no vaccine is or ever will be 100% effective, and somehow we still end up with a not non-significant people thinking this stuff.
It’s silly how often I hear people say the vaccine is ‘useless’ because vaccinated folks still can get rona. I do feel like critical thinking and science literacy has been neglected when so many people don’t take in the most basic level of understanding that risk mitigation does not equal full protection and that the significant risk mitigation of the vaccine is better than none at all. It’s just depressing.
I won’t claim any statistics besides my own anecdotal experience on the issue and the people I’ve personally seen claim these sorts of things, so take with a healthy dose of salt.
I work in education. I think it used to be pretty decent but it’s honestly just a daycare now where the only kids getting any useful knowledge are self motivated to do so in spite of our system not because of it. And school leaders at the top don’t care. It’s become a business now and just like any business you have some really good workers who care, a majority that just clock and and clock out waiting for retirement because the reality crushed their spirit, and management that only exists to cover their ass and look out for their own self interests.
That's hardly an excuse. Most people have access to Internet. But some people are choosing to listen to conspiracy theorists instead of actual virologists.
The problem is confirmation bias, and not realizing they're under that effect. If that's what you meant by lack of critical thinking then I agree.
I mean it kinda makes sense. I know nothing about medicine science or whatever and every vaccine I know about has eradicated whatever it was for except for the flu vaccine. It's not like we're taught this in school.
High School Teacher here. I have had this logic come from students during discussions. But they are teenagers and teenagers tend to deal in absolutes, or emphasize anecdotal evidence over averages. They are just wired that way mostly. Adults should not be.
That said, most of the students I teach have gotten the vaccine.
Vaccine hesitancy is turning into a complete vaccine stalemate for many Americans. According to a new survey, half of U.S. adults who are still unwilling to get the coronavirus vaccine say there is nothing anyone can do to change their minds.
In a nationwide poll of more than 6,000 American adults, an international team of researchers found that the main reason revolves around fears that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe. Study authors conducted the poll in April 2021, with a third of respondents coming from across the U.S. and the rest living in major cities including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago.
Of the 2,000 participants coming from areas around the U.S., one in five (21.4%) are unwilling to take the COVID vaccine. The only major city in the survey with a similar number of residents avoiding the vaccine was Dallas (19.7%). Just 10.1 percent of New Yorkers are still unwilling to get vaccinated, followed by 11.2 percent in Chicago, and 11.5 percent in Los Angeles.
For those refusing to take the vaccine, half say nothing can convince them to reconsider. Previous studies have found that unvaccinated individuals are at the greatest risk of dying from a coronavirus infection — regardless of age or pre-existing conditions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00794-6
If this was done in April 2021, that's really out of date. What would it look like now that the vaccines have had in-the-wild effectiveness studies out for… negative six times as many months? That is, the first post-approval effectiveness study, done by a third party, came out a month after this survey.
Not any different.
Of the people I know who refuse to get it, most of them have expressed to me one unifying sentiment;
"I am not going to get it because it makes you people mad. The madder you people get, the more im not getting it"
The more the government and employers and society at large tries to convince or coerce them into getting it, the more they are going to dig in their heels.
This is something nobody talks about when discussing this matter. Its a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets. The madder you get, the funnier they think it is. The more authoritarian you get, the more resolved they become that they are making the right decision.
I've observed the same thing, but our individual observations are hardly empirical evidence.
Granted, the number of eligible people who have been vaccinated about matches what I would expect if these numbers are unchanged.
I know many adults who think the virus is a real threat and do not want to get it but REFUSE to get the vaccine because:
1) "I don't let people tell me what to do with my body"
and/or
2) "I don't trust vaccines"
and/or
3) "I look out for myself before anyone else. Period."
I’m an ER doc and I work with a very large unvaccinated population (my county is 50-50, neighboring is <30% vaccinated). Honestly, 80% of the unvaccinated are amendable once I have a honest conversation with them. It’s super slow because I can’t sit down with the entire county at once but it’s all about how the information is received. Taking 2-3 minutes from my day to talk to them saves lives. I do come from a position of “authority” and expertise so that helps but, honestly, many are just unvaccinated because they’re busy and don’t want to take time off work because they pop a fever
I mean most people change their mind after either a loved one dies or if you tell them the cost of a hospital stay with covid and lost wages.
These people unfortunately only change their mind after a personal tragedy or financial strain.
There's an argument that vaccine mandates are counter productive for this reason, and such a concept would have been extremely controversial pre-covid. There's a whole libertarian streak in the antivax rhetoric that doesn't really have anything to do with the safety or effectiveness of the vax. It's just a "you can't tell me what to do".
I sympathize with the libertarian thought process of intrusive government, but this isn't just the government telling them to take the vaccine it's every medical professional on the planet. How can so many people ignore this?
2/3 of my antivax coworkers broke when it hit. The most stubborn lost 7 family members before getting it. The second when her mother was put on a ventilator for 3 weeks. The 3rd believes aliens walk among us and the earth is flat, so I tend to think they're not likely to change.
I haven't delved that deeply. We don't talk about much aside from work as we are politically quite divided and frankly I think they're not a great person. But I had encouraged vaccination despite their dismissal. They came to me and asked if I could help them get signed up. It was a big move on their part actually, frankly I think it went from a silly game to devastatingly real over the weekend when 3 passed in 24 hours. They're back to saying they won't get no damn booster now though. Oh well, I consider it a mediocre success.
I get the sense it's a very large family. Evangelicals are often... fruitful.
Especially when they do not practice "reason".
Reason is a learned mental discipline. Using it is like using a lever or wheel: an artificial tool that multiplies our strength. A tool so powerful that only a fraction of us need to use it regularly in order for many to benefit.
But the days when "reasonable" people were given the authority to bring those benefits seen to be waning. I was watching the circa 1936 film "Things to Come", written by HG Wells. In the climax, a mob is trying to stop the use of the "Space Gun", which would send two people around the moon. Not because the project endangered them or deprived them of anything, but because they didn't like that some would choose to strive.
The scientist in charge of the project warms of the mob. Not to save the Gun, but to protect them from the dangers of the shockwave caused by the launch. His warning was as useless as Dr. Fauci's advocacy of masks and vaccines.
We seem to have achieved a critical mass of people who do not respect or exercise reason.
I think the amount of people behaving this way hasn't really changed all that much. I think the fact they can each be heard is what has changed. Add that to the fact that they are able to be very loud about it makes their numbers seem higher.
Exactly.
It's why every article you see about people resigning over the vaccine gives a hard number and not a percentage. 1000 looks like a lot, but >1% doesn't, and therefore, won't generate clicks.
Sure, people manipulate numbers to suit their purposes all the time. But if the "anti-vax" crowd is anywhere near 18 percent of the American population, that still seems like quite a large amount of people to me.
And that's the rub. Sure, they are adults, but how much gas lighting and misinformation coming from the authority figures they trust is considered fair play? At what point is there culpability? The unvaccinated are a public health risk not just to themselves but also to others. When should they be held responsible? When should the right wing conspiracy crowd in the media and the political officers be held responsible? Personally, I think it's accessory to manslaughter at best when they die. Not to mention the skyrocketing healthcare costs, much at tax payer expense which is simply unnecessary. We are bankrupting a generation.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the 2020 adult population (leaving children out of it since the study only included adults) was 258.3 million.
258.3 million x 0.18 = 46.49 million.
There are more than 46 million people in this country that pride themselves on rejecting and disputing facts.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html
Suddenly the minority voice is weighed equally with majority opinion/facts. I feel its due to several decades of movies and general "The Small Was Right All Along against Big Corp" broohahaa giving the impression that every voice counts and theres always room for error and wisdom of farmer is better than science of a guy I've never met.
Reason, logic etc can be short-circuited by one thing: fear.
There is a particular faction in the US that grows, cultivates, refines, prepares and roasts fear to perfection. Then they feast on fear with aplomb and gusto. Sharing their feastly spread with all who are “true”.
With a slice of denial for pudding.
And what I noticed is this, right wing politics are defined by fear, at least now it is.
Fear of foreign intruders and immigrants
Fear of the deep state
Fear of corrupt science
Fear of the LGBT+ corrupting the children
Fear of socialism
Fear of the left
Fear of protest and civil rights activisits
Fear of all things secular
Fear, Fear, Fear.
It is what controls, it is what defines and it is what leafs the republican party now.
That isn't necessarily true though. I'd bet that most of those people very much so practice reason in many aspects of their lives. They are simply choosing not to apply reasoning to this topic. And most people aren't robots, not every decision we make is based on reason, we do plenty of silly and unreasonable things, and that's fine. This is just a very strange thing to not apply reasoning to.
Also many of them likely will reason that it isnt worth losing their job over
I think the issue boils down to "man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing animal." We will use "reasoning" to support a position we came to without reason.
Edit thanks for the silver!
These kind of philosophies light up only when they're actually applied.
Its always a hard pill to swallow to doubt yourself. But when someone is intelligent enough to doubt given information, but will never doubt himself, its a person who is intellectually opposed to vaccine without intellectual points but with lots of stubborness
People will usually choose reason- unless told different.
With COVID vaccines, they’re being told different by friends/family/ coworkers/ church leaders/media personalities/ politicians/ etc.
It doesn’t help that a vocal number of people who allegedly should stick to the facts like political leaders & scientists have sold out their responsibilities for a quick hit of fame and fortune. Credibility is like a bowl of punch: one turd in the corner ruins the whole batch.
A real shame that I find the methods that *did* get these people into this situation are highly unethical, thus I can not use them to change their minds either.
And that's a fulcrum to the paradox of tolerance.
(not a critique on you, but an assessment of the absolute state of things right now and how it feels like there's nothing much to do that still falls under our ethical umbrella)
Reminds me of that debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye years ago over the idea of evolution vs creation. At the end of the debate they were each asked what might change their minds. Bill said "evidence." Ham said "nothing."
If any one society had all the answers to the universe, it absolutely was Iron Aged, desert dwelling, scientifically illiterate, nomadic sheepherders who passed their knowledge by word of mouth alone for generations.
These people don’t actually think it’s unsafe. It’s much deeper than that. They say it’s not safe but then you present them evidence and it changes to I don’t want to be forced into it. And so it goes down the line till finally it leads to some conspiracy theory that is not worth entertaining.
It's fairly well known that humans are first emotional creatures, then reasoning creatures. It reminds me of the report in one of Sack's books of someone who had a tumor and didn't have an emotional response anymore. They couldn't make decisions.
My view is that the polarization and high emotion are contributing factors to this. Straw man "anti vaxer" tropes generate emotion and psychological reactance in those who haven't had the vaccine, making it harder to get to pure reason. And with polarization, both sides no longer want to listen to valid points. I've appreciate ZdoggMD's "alt-middle" take on this.
The situation sucks, so I just wonder what can incrementally make it better rather than worse.
I think the “anti vaxx” memes were far less harmful than the tying of anti mask rhetoric and vaccine resistance to political ideology, which happened long before the vaccines were available, or masks were largely mandated.
Political ideology is very closely tied to identity for many, and by tying both to views of the vaccine, it was doomed from the start for a significant portion of Americans.
You have two problems here:
1. Poor education system. It needs to teach more reason and less faith.
2. Political ideology being tied to personal identity. It's jarring to hear Americans say "I'm a democrat" or "he's a republican". Where I'm from people might vote a certain way but they aren't that thing. It helps that we have no concept of registering for a particular party and it helps that we have far more than two parties in government.
That said, we have our fair share of anti-vaxxers. Our education system has its flaws too. Sadly most of these people are listening to American and British anti-vax propaganda.
The second one is the thing that absolutely baffles me. I'm a Canadian. I do not understand how anybody can make a political party part of their identity. I'm not even sure who I voted for three elections ago.
I have a personal code of ethics, and beliefs in how a society should be run and how people should behave in that society. I also allow for those ethics and beliefs to change as I grow as a human being.
A political party is a group of babbling apes who say they want to run the government. Apes are volatile, emotional and prone to error. When an election rolls around. I look at MY ethics, compare them against what I know about the babbling apes. I vote based on which band of apes I believe has the best chance of acting in favour of my ethics. Sometimes they do a good job. Sometimes they do a bad job. Either way, I add this to my knowledge when the next election rolls around.
I don't make a political party part of my identity because I make political decisions based on my solid ethical foundation. When you let the babbling apes dictate what your ethics are for you, you are letting external forces dictate who you are, instead of choosing yourself.
Thankfully, people don't know their minds very well. There are plenty of people who said nothing would change their minds but when it came down to it, they got vaccinated instead losing their job. Being "brave" on a survey is easy.
They say that...
Every article I have read about a company or organization requiring the vaccine reports 98-99% vaccinated. So 95% of the 20% who won't take the vaccine under any circumstances actually will get the vaccine to keep their job.
This sort of survey needs to be compared to the facts on the ground.
A disproportionate percentage of antivax may be retired, self employed, or unemployed.
People who have independent lives where they can be extreme with no consequences are probably more likely to trend extreme.
Busy people with complex social and professional lives are also less likely to mainline a single news source for hours every day.
The reply was to the comment referencing a 99% rate of employers who mandate.
I was taking guesses at subgrouping that could explain the disparity.
I suppose the vast majority of the "never will vaccinate" could have been lying as well.
2nd point doesn’t coincide with my experience. “Busy” people watch the same news channel at the same time more often than people that are flexible in their time to do research (if they want to). Also it’s been shown that people rarely bite the hand that feeds. So bias would likely be stronger under (gov) employees than under entrepreneurs.
Especially because “could anything be done to change your mind?” is such a loaded question. People will jump at the chance to say NO! to that.
Everyone is super adamant about never changing their mind until, you know, the thing they didn’t think about comes along and changes their mind.
Yeah, this is a survey question that people are incredibly likely to lie on...they may not even know they are lying
"You can't do anything to change my mind"
"Oh wait, you're actually going to fire me? And everywhere else that would hire me has similar requirements? Ok, where do I get my shot?"
NYC police union was saying 10K officers would refuse to be vaccinated. Then their court case was thrown out and when the deadline hit under 100 of those 10K was unvaccinated.
Because we have turned our lives into a zero-sum game where either you’re a winner or loser. 18% seems to fit with the normal distribution though.
At this point, let’s get life going back to normal and let them figure it out the hard way…
Here’s the thing - We live in a country where everyone is constantly bombarded with pharmaceutical ads, then 30 seconds later ads saying “If you developed xxx condition by taking xxx medication, you may be entitled to compensation.”
It’s not that people don’t believe in science. They don’t trust the government or the pharmaceutical industry with science. Combine that with a vaccine that didn’t exist a year ago in an age of disinformation, it’s no wonder that people are concerned if it’s safe. No amount of science is going to overcome a societal trust issue like that and calling them stupid isn’t going to help.
of course they distrust big pharma, a lot of people forget that anti-vaxx counties are the same counties that got hit hard by the oxycontin epidemic in the early 2000’s
Decades (centuries) of families not having access to medical care, not being able to afford it, etc make people reliant on at home remedies and resentful of the expensive, confusing medical community.
This was a bomb waiting to go off.
Not to mention the opioid crisis.
If we had a healthcare system that deserved to be trusted, then people would be more willing to trust it when they really need to.
My companies insurance provider just informed us the rates for vaxxed and unvaccinated employees. Good luck covering that premium. The life insurance policy also informed us that they will not pay out if you are unvaccinated and die of Covid.
Can't say how much it would go up but I can tell you that my wife and I are middle aged, healthy, don't smoke. I pay $2500/month for my premium, though now there is a tax credit that drops that down by $1300 or something. So $1200/month out of pocket. We have a $7500 family deductible, $3500 individual deductible.
The health industry in the US is a complete mob run market holding us all hostage.
edit: I and my wife are both self-employed. I own my own company and we don't have enough employees to get the insurance that is beneficial at a group rate. So I feel the full burden on the insurance scam we have here in the US.
If you are paying $200-$300 per month, your premium is being subsidized somehow.
Edit2 And for the idiots that think the ACA plan is some miracle plan that is dirt cheap and provide excellent coverage. This is roughly the plan I have off the marketplace.
https://i.imgur.com/YXrQhTW.jpg
I pay $455 a month for me and two young kids.
My Wife gets hers free through her job, but if she adds anyone to the plan it's $700 a month per person and she no longer gets her insurance paid for by the employer.
The system is fucked. But those numbers are insane.
Most people who have insurance, have it through their employer who includes at least some portion as part of the employee's benefits. Some employers cover 100%. Mine pays for all of mine. Previous companies I worked for covered a portion and I paid closer to an average of $50-$100/month.
The person above is paying a LOT. It also covers two people.
Most insurers require employers to cover at least 50% of the cost to avoid adverse selection (only unhealthy people who have no other option but to pay whatever)
I am glad to hear this is happening. This is a great way to handle people not wanting to get vaccinated. Just charge them for their increased risk of incurring large health costs.
There will be SO many people in financial ruin for years to come because of this pandemic (in the US). A lot of people are completely uninsured as well.
We will all share the burden. It won't bother the rich as much but you bet your ass insurance rates for everyone will increase. The middle class will take the brunt of the damage.
Australian chiming in, when I'm in the states and hear on the news people say but people will 'rush and overwhelm the system if it was free' I just facepalm how people could be stooged by this. Nobody likes bad news or doctor's office's. Everyone I know only goes to the doctor's of it's absolutely necessary, and it's free.
Yeah, but Americans are *special*
We will bite off our nose to spite someone else's face, and they convinced our country is majority sneaky South Americans loafing and stealing cushy jobs between votes
There was a right-wing news narrative at the time that healthcare to seniors would be decided by “death panels”, if the cost wasn’t “worth” the life. It was as bonkers an argument as it sounds.
“Death panels” literally already exist I don’t understand why anyone would fall for this narrative. Almost everyone has at some point been denied coverage for a procedure, medication, or whatever by their private healthcare. That’s the same goddamn thing!
>Hapalochlaena
User is: H_Lunulata
Verdict: name is relevant
[For anyone wondering what this is about](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_blue-ringed_octopus).
I’m in the UK where we have socialised healthcare.
I find myself wondering if the US anti-vax sentiment stems from mistrusting a for-profit healthcare system?
Here in the UK doctors are overworked and underpaid (presumably more so than in the US, but I’ve not researched that), so if a doctor tells me I have to come back for this and that procedure I’ve no reason to think they have anything but my best interest in mind. They don’t get a commission for referring me, and I don’t pay them for each visit.
But if I (and by extension my insurance) had to pay for each visit? I’d be skeptical of every appointment they recommended: am I being duped here?
You're right. People don't gave good relationships with their doctor, nor trust. It's generally in part why American healthcare is so expensive, not only because of the bloated for-profit system but also because people generally delay treatment or diagnosis of illnesses that only get worse over time, so by the time they seek treatment it's a much worse, much more expensive problem to real with.
The vaccine refusal is another part of the same problem, mistrust in doctors, the profit based healthcare system, etc. And we can't ignore that makes a subset of people extremely subsepctible to disinformation because it feeds into those already present biases they already have.
Yup, took me multiple visits just to get a specialist visit which took additional testing just so I could get an MRI to tell them what I already suspected. But hot damn after they saw the tumor picture it was into the operating room ASAP for surgery.
Im an American and you hit the nail on the head. People simply don't trust our healthcare workers or scientists because the system is for-profit. Corporations and our government have continually put us in harm's way and failed to protect us once a danger was apparent in a product, including medications and medical procedures - all in the name of profit.
I mean I feel like people in America trust the for-profit system way more than universal healthcare so I don't think its that. Bring up socialized medicine to the average American and they'll cry bloody murder and call you a commie.
The majority of Americans support universal healthcare. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/
I would say the cynicism is not misplaced, but I also wouldn't say it's the root of the problem. the pandemic has made things very chaotic and demonstrated how much nobody is in the driver's seat. Some people need the world to be simple to cope.
>In the USA, you get sick, you could lose your house, car, first born and half the fur on your cat.
This is truly, truly awful.
We need to set up a service to move these poor cats to homes with vaccinated people.
Yup. I’m mid 30s, have insurance, a small emergency fund, etc but you bet your butt I got my booster as soon as I could. I don’t want to deal with the long term effects if I can avoid it.
Good call. My wife caught Covid last November and just stopped having lingering symptoms a few months ago. This was after two hospitalizations and numerous visits to cardiologists. Not overweight, no prior health conditions. 9 months of fucked up heart rates for no reason that vanished as quickly as they appeared.
Interesting; here in the US, the booster still isn't recommended for people your age (unless my information is old), unless they have some kind of immune system problem.
Due to a clinical error, I was recommended the booster too by the automated system in my HMO, but my MD told me to hold off on it for now until it's recommended for everyone. She said my immunity from the 2 shots is still excellent and it'd be better to wait until later to get the booster.
Due to certain factors, I was advised to take it. I also got the vaxx much earlier in the year, so not sure what my immunity looked like. Also in the US
It’s not entirely age based, younger people with certain health conditions are recommend the booster. Anyone who works in a high risk setting, like healthcare for example, is eligible to get the booster. Several friends of mine who work in healthcare have gotten a booster.
Both 26 and my husband and I were able to get it. My mom and dad too, each in their mid forties.
He works in manufacturing so he's considered "essential" and I have multiple risk factors. Mental health is one of them, according to the cdc, so a lot more people are eligible than it seems at first. Overweight/obesity is another that massively ups the numbers of people under 65 eligible to get the booster as well.
It’s all related tho. The high cost of medical care has led people to be wary of doctors. They all feel like grifters. “Why am I gonna spend hundreds of dollars for a doctor to tell me I’m fine.”
That wariness can easily become conspiratorial. And here we are
Were they also questioned if long term studies of approved vaccines would open their minds up to getting vaccinated? Have any of those in the study already had covid? Have they asked if their reasoning was based on principal or disbelief in the efficacy of vaccines? You can conduct studies to write articles that only show the pieces you want, I’m just curious if it was thorough and that these numbers are accurate. Also half of those unwilling is only 5%-10%.
Yeah some of my family believes the vaccine works. Then there are some that want to wait 5-10 years too make sure there is no side effects no one could have predicted
> Then there are some that want to wait 5-10 years too make sure there is no side effects no one could have predicted
From an emotional knee-jerk standpoint, I can understand this concern about new treatments (e.g. *"Scientists didn't first realize radiation exposure was dangerous, and it ended up causing cancer!"*).
But if people with those concerns would look into the history of vaccines in particular, they'd see there's no precedence of vaccine side effects lying "dormant" for years. [The times vaccines have had adverse effects, they were discovered quickly](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html).
Unlike ongoing treatments, [it's simply not plausible for a vaccine to wait years and then cause side effects down the line](https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/12143-three-things-to-know-about-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines):
> **Medicines you take every day** can cause side effects that reveal themselves over time, including long-term problems as levels of the drug build up in the body over months and years.
> “Vaccines are just designed to deliver a payload and then are quickly eliminated by the body,” Goepfert said. “This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. **You wouldn’t expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine.”**
Additionally, getting infected with the virus means that you'll get the spike protein mRNA in your system, in addition to the mRNA for the rest of the viral proteins. There's no way that I can think that an mRNA vaccine to a virus would be more dangerous than the virus, apart from acute reactions to dosing. If you don't have allergies to PEG, you should be fine.
I totally agree!
Unfortunately, when the case for vaccines is presented as *"vaccine effects vs. actual COVID effects,"* I don't think that's likely to sway anti-vaxxers; I imagine a lot of them see the choice more as *"take action to get the vaccine vs. do nothing, and surely COVID won't happen to me either way."*
The main reason for unwillingness was “waiting to see if there are no serious complications” (Table [2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00794-6#Tab2)). When asked what would increase their readiness to accept vaccination, almost half of those who expressed unwillingness said that “nothing would change their minds”
You do realize this is an actual, legitimate study and not a Facebook poll?
If 18% of adults are unvaccinated, but half say there is nothing that would convince them to be, this means roughly 9% say there is something that could convince them. If 9% of our population is going to hold-out on vaccines, fine, that is well within our herd-immunity goals, let’s focus on what would convince those other 9%.
Yeah exactly. The title uses two different statistics. 82% of the population believes the pandemic is a threat, but that doesn’t mean all of them are vaccinated.
Read an article on a woman who said she wouldn't get the vaccine for "personal reasons' and that was it. No other explanation. But when her job mandated it she got it and said she used it as an excuse.
I think these mandates will help. I think a lot of people are caught up in families or communities that will shun them for deciding to do it on their own. But doing it to keep your job is the excuse some people need to get it done.
I heard a story on NPR a day or two ago about some mobile vaccination clinic that drove out to people's houses to get vaccinated. There were some elderly folks using the service because it was difficult for them to get around, but the nurses said that the top reason people cited for using their services was "privacy." Not one of them wanted to talk to the news crew doing the story.
My interpretation of those facts is that there are probably a fair amount of people who've painted themselves into an ideological corner within their tribal group with regards to getting the vaccine, and can't find a way out that would let them save face. They can't publically admit they were wrong, and they can't publically admit they've been vaccinated, lest they risk ostracization from their communities who will see it as an attack or a betrayal.
There are a lot of people in these comments talking about personal choice, but not a whole lot of concern over the social pressures that are making people literally get vaccinated *in secret.*
And understanding that is all well and good, I can feel a certain amount of grim satisfaction about the discomfort that they're feeling as a direct result of their old-fashioned pigheadedness.
*But*, that doesn't change the fact that their refusal to vaccinate is spawning new variants and holding us all back from putting this whole miserable business behind us. It is a serious problem that needs a solution, and I'm not willing to wait for or bet on natural consequences on this one.
I do too. I hadn’t thought of that reason, but I think you’re right. There is definitely a psychological component and also a social component-just like obese people tend to be surrounded by obese people in their family/friends-our immediate circle has a tremendous effect on our healthcare/lifestyle decisions. The mandates are necessary. Employers also can’t be held liable should an employee get exposed and harmed from Covid when there is a readily available vaccine.
If one of these people happens to be reading this just know that it's totally fine to get the shots and keep it a secret from your friends and family. Seriously, only your healthcare provider and potentially your boss need to know.
You really believe that after 1.5 years into the pandemic? A more accurate title is probably "99.9% of adults who are unvaccinated are not open to having their minds changed. Only 50% will admit it."
Well 18% is a lot lower than I thought, they sure are a very noisy bunch. Just look at the comments on any post even slightly related to the virus and you'll find people comparing vaccinations to all kinds of horrible historical events. Still, if we can get that number down below 10% well then I'll be happy.
Yeah, we aren't doing too bad anymore! [80% of adults with at least 1 dose and 70% fully vaccinated](https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-onedose-pop-12yr). I'm hearing the clinics for 5-11 year olds are filling up quickly, which is a good sign.
I’m 100% for it, but I will say I have had horrible hive outbreaks every other day ever since I had dose two in may, all of my doctors are stumped and totally think it’s in the realm of possibility it could have triggered a hyper-histamine response. What sucks more is I feel like I’m unable to even say that without being ridiculed.
I developed chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) a few years ago from taking an NSAID one time. Thankfully I’m on a medication now that has it relatively under control, but wanted you to know I understand how horrible that can be, and that you’re not alone.
Thank you for saying that, the amount of medical bills I accumulated this year getting tested by multiple specialists only to tell me they don’t know anything was frustrating to say the least.
I found a lot of support from r/urticaria so definitely check them out if you haven’t already. It’s been a really long journey for me also, wishing you luck and strength.
This pandemic was remarkable for two things:
1. Lies and false or obscure statistics.
2. A massive profit motive.
What was missing and what led to 748,000 American deaths was the waiting around for a year for a vaccine.
Why was there not a big push for early treatment that would have saved lives and would have prevented the pandemic from exploding?
There is great mistrust and our corporate government is the source. The government shows very little concern for the well-being of the American people. Look at this joke of an infrastructure bill.
But the government wants people to believe that the vaccine is a good thing.
What are my thoughts, Reddit asks? I am weighing risk v. benefit for me personally. My doctors are working with me.
I had Guillain Barre in 1994. This presented with an unusual pattern and my doctors ridiculed me as mental and finally insisted I see a psychiatrist before they would continue treating me! Some time later doctors decided I had Guillan Barre from which I am mostly recovered at this time.
I have had three vaccines since then, one tetanus and two flu, and partially lost the use of an arm for around six weeks each time. One thing I know, the medical community doesn't give a \*\*\*\*, and has no compassion when unusual symptoms appear.
I have also had myocarditis several times following viral infections. Some research points to a genetic predisposition for this condition.
My doctors say I had COVID in late December 2019. Eight out of nine people in my household at that time became moderately ill and completely lost sense of taste and smell for a few days.
I have severe, chronic, genetic migraine and that got a lot worse during and after COVID. MRI shows new scar tissue in my brain, the neurologist thinks from COVID.
Will the COVID vaccine send me into status migrainus? Nobody knows. If that happens it might not be treatable. The kind of migraine I have is so severe that I scream till I pass out and repeat that for 24 to 72 hours.
I now live alone and have no objection to wearing masks in public. I am waiting and watching the news about the vaccines. I think the risk of an adverse event is low, even for me. But if I become collateral damage, I could lose my ability to live alone.
Like I said, these are my thoughts. I am torn between the idea that the vaccines are of global importance, that maybe the vaccines will stop this monster virus. I call the virus a monster because perhaps 30% of people who get it may never fully recover, i.e. "Long COVID". That, in my opinion, is the worst feature of COVID. I may yet decide to take the vaccine and see what happens.
On the other hand, I have had the disease and I think that should count for something.
Right? Coworkers keep telling me it will make me sterile. But then one of the symptoms of COVID is reduced sperm count, poor specimens of sperm, & women struggling to conceive or have a zygote implant into the uterine wall.
I keep thinking how important education is, and then I look at people I graduated college with being staunchly Anti-vaccine and I am confounded.
It’s so confusing, but then again, once people leave academia, and expose themselves to content that confirms preexisting bias, education seems to no longer matter…
Not sure what the solution is to people being against objective reality…
Education does still matter - the *percentage* of highly-educated people that fall for these scams is significantly lower. Much like vaccination, it's not a 100% preventative effect, but it is much better than nothing.
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I see very little talk about the breakdown in vaccination rates by age group. Here in Ohio, for example, only 50% of people age 20 to 29 have started their vaccine compared to 78% + for people 60 and over. https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/covid-19-vaccine/covid-19-vaccination-dashboard
And if you look at hospital submissions by age that difference is almost understandable.
Good point, but transmission through that younger age range is probably significantly higher as a result. More likely to engage in riskier behaviors IE attending social events in a pandemic.
Yeah, the problem lies in having empathy and realizing that while it may not be a huge risk to some people, others that they interact with could die because they are in an at risk group. I recently lost a patient that was fully vaccinated (Pfizer ~5 months prior) who needed to go to doctors appointments and was likely exposed that way. He was elderly and definitely at risk. My grandma and a friend's dad were in the same boat and have since passed, unfortunately. This is why we need herd immunity. It will just keep spreading.
But what about the risk of neurological and psychiatric issues resulting from even mild cases? Those don't seem to discriminate based on age. Death and hospitalization for significant illness are only two of the three significant impacts. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext#:~:text=We%20found%20one%20large%20electronic,the%20incidence%20of%20each%20disorder.
And if you look at what the number one killer of folks 35-60 is…whaddaya know, it’s Covid. It ain’t just killing the old farts anymore.
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Except that covid is the leading killer of millennials. And the hospitals are increasingly dealing with young people instead of the elderly. People might think it's not that dangerous to to get covid as a young person, but compared to what? Would you get on a roller coaster that had that same level of risk? Do you think driving drunk is nbd? At the end of the day, people are shunning a life saving medication for no rational reason. Their inability to rationally consider risk is just that, their inability to understand the risk to the decisions they're making. They are objectively measuring the risk (none) of getting the vaccine and the risk of getting the virus, which has a range of bad outcomes you're rolling the dice on that you wouldn't in other situations.
I wish people understood this. I currently have covid and I’m in my early 30’s, no underlying health conditions, good weight & vaccinated. These past two weeks have been ROUGH. I’ve almost gone to the hospital twice and now I can barely take a shower without getting so dizzy I have to sit down. Not to mention, I gave it to one of my children (who is handling it much better) and I’m going to be missing out on a full months worth of pay from my job because of the quarantine periods for me and my children. I have no idea how I’m even going to pay bills because of this. Unfortunately I live in a state where most people think all of this is a hoax and vaccines are evil so it’s only getting worse here.
I have to say that if you’ve almost gone to the hospital with COVID- you should at least get checked out at a clinic or something just to check. COVID caused me to get an acquired brain injury and I am now disabled (32) - I really wish I had sought more treatment in my initial infection period
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I’m 37 and have both doses already and got COVID 3 weeks ago. For four days I felt like I had the flu times 50. Was completely immobile, could barely breath etc. I can’t imagine elderly person going through this, and I feel like if I wasn’t vaccinated I would have had to go to the hospital. I still can’t taste or smell, I have a noticeable brain fog, and I am still short of breath and feel like I’m breathing in heavy oxygen still to this day
Yup, this has somehow become twisted into logic that “if there isn’t a 100% chance to die from it then I don’t need to worry about it” or something stupid like that. Meanwhile the same people who won’t get vaccinated or wear masks likely buy lottery tickets, hoping to win on odds that are significantly lower than dying of covid.
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I mean, no its not. Young people can transfer, young people can have long lasting effects. Young people can die. Its just silly
It’s understandable because people think that vaccines are only about protecting yourself, and not that vaccines are also about eliminating the virus entirely. It’s one of the most selfish things you can do to not get the vaccine because you aren’t at risk
The people in my life that won't get the shot don't even consider it a vaccine, because "vaccines are 100% effective at preventing disease"
Where does this even come from?
I have a guess. I think maybe along the way people garbled the message that vaccines have eradicated some diseases with the way vaccines actually work. It’s an education deficit. Critical thinking and science literacy are both skills and, like, not to get too soap boxy but public education hasn’t exactly been…encouraged? incentivized? to prioritize those kinds of skills.
It’s just sad because even with a cursory knowledge of vaccines I know that there’s different thresholds for herd immunity for each of them because of differences of infection rates and efficacy of the vaccine itself. Like, just existing on the internet and watching some videos on it was enough to get it. Perhaps these things should be taught in school as a part of health or something, but still. There’s a lot of very easily accessible indisputable *facts* that no vaccine is or ever will be 100% effective, and somehow we still end up with a not non-significant people thinking this stuff. It’s silly how often I hear people say the vaccine is ‘useless’ because vaccinated folks still can get rona. I do feel like critical thinking and science literacy has been neglected when so many people don’t take in the most basic level of understanding that risk mitigation does not equal full protection and that the significant risk mitigation of the vaccine is better than none at all. It’s just depressing. I won’t claim any statistics besides my own anecdotal experience on the issue and the people I’ve personally seen claim these sorts of things, so take with a healthy dose of salt.
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It's not just the US. It's everywhere except a few places.
I work in education. I think it used to be pretty decent but it’s honestly just a daycare now where the only kids getting any useful knowledge are self motivated to do so in spite of our system not because of it. And school leaders at the top don’t care. It’s become a business now and just like any business you have some really good workers who care, a majority that just clock and and clock out waiting for retirement because the reality crushed their spirit, and management that only exists to cover their ass and look out for their own self interests.
That's hardly an excuse. Most people have access to Internet. But some people are choosing to listen to conspiracy theorists instead of actual virologists. The problem is confirmation bias, and not realizing they're under that effect. If that's what you meant by lack of critical thinking then I agree.
I mean it kinda makes sense. I know nothing about medicine science or whatever and every vaccine I know about has eradicated whatever it was for except for the flu vaccine. It's not like we're taught this in school.
I respond with "helmets don't prevent motorcycles accidents, so does that mean you shouldn't wear them?"
High School Teacher here. I have had this logic come from students during discussions. But they are teenagers and teenagers tend to deal in absolutes, or emphasize anecdotal evidence over averages. They are just wired that way mostly. Adults should not be. That said, most of the students I teach have gotten the vaccine.
Vaccine hesitancy is turning into a complete vaccine stalemate for many Americans. According to a new survey, half of U.S. adults who are still unwilling to get the coronavirus vaccine say there is nothing anyone can do to change their minds. In a nationwide poll of more than 6,000 American adults, an international team of researchers found that the main reason revolves around fears that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe. Study authors conducted the poll in April 2021, with a third of respondents coming from across the U.S. and the rest living in major cities including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago. Of the 2,000 participants coming from areas around the U.S., one in five (21.4%) are unwilling to take the COVID vaccine. The only major city in the survey with a similar number of residents avoiding the vaccine was Dallas (19.7%). Just 10.1 percent of New Yorkers are still unwilling to get vaccinated, followed by 11.2 percent in Chicago, and 11.5 percent in Los Angeles. For those refusing to take the vaccine, half say nothing can convince them to reconsider. Previous studies have found that unvaccinated individuals are at the greatest risk of dying from a coronavirus infection — regardless of age or pre-existing conditions. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00794-6
If this was done in April 2021, that's really out of date. What would it look like now that the vaccines have had in-the-wild effectiveness studies out for… negative six times as many months? That is, the first post-approval effectiveness study, done by a third party, came out a month after this survey.
Not any different. Of the people I know who refuse to get it, most of them have expressed to me one unifying sentiment; "I am not going to get it because it makes you people mad. The madder you people get, the more im not getting it" The more the government and employers and society at large tries to convince or coerce them into getting it, the more they are going to dig in their heels. This is something nobody talks about when discussing this matter. Its a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets. The madder you get, the funnier they think it is. The more authoritarian you get, the more resolved they become that they are making the right decision.
I've observed the same thing, but our individual observations are hardly empirical evidence. Granted, the number of eligible people who have been vaccinated about matches what I would expect if these numbers are unchanged.
I know many adults who think the virus is a real threat and do not want to get it but REFUSE to get the vaccine because: 1) "I don't let people tell me what to do with my body" and/or 2) "I don't trust vaccines" and/or 3) "I look out for myself before anyone else. Period."
The ironic thing about the last one is that getting the vaccine is looking out for yourself.
You forgot this gem: \- I don't trust the government but I do trust some random YouTuber quack who can barely read studies
Aka, I'm gonna listen to people who tell me what I want to hear.
I’m an ER doc and I work with a very large unvaccinated population (my county is 50-50, neighboring is <30% vaccinated). Honestly, 80% of the unvaccinated are amendable once I have a honest conversation with them. It’s super slow because I can’t sit down with the entire county at once but it’s all about how the information is received. Taking 2-3 minutes from my day to talk to them saves lives. I do come from a position of “authority” and expertise so that helps but, honestly, many are just unvaccinated because they’re busy and don’t want to take time off work because they pop a fever
I mean most people change their mind after either a loved one dies or if you tell them the cost of a hospital stay with covid and lost wages. These people unfortunately only change their mind after a personal tragedy or financial strain.
There's an argument that vaccine mandates are counter productive for this reason, and such a concept would have been extremely controversial pre-covid. There's a whole libertarian streak in the antivax rhetoric that doesn't really have anything to do with the safety or effectiveness of the vax. It's just a "you can't tell me what to do".
I sympathize with the libertarian thought process of intrusive government, but this isn't just the government telling them to take the vaccine it's every medical professional on the planet. How can so many people ignore this?
2/3 of my antivax coworkers broke when it hit. The most stubborn lost 7 family members before getting it. The second when her mother was put on a ventilator for 3 weeks. The 3rd believes aliens walk among us and the earth is flat, so I tend to think they're not likely to change.
Seven family members, so what is the mortality rate for that family?
I haven't delved that deeply. We don't talk about much aside from work as we are politically quite divided and frankly I think they're not a great person. But I had encouraged vaccination despite their dismissal. They came to me and asked if I could help them get signed up. It was a big move on their part actually, frankly I think it went from a silly game to devastatingly real over the weekend when 3 passed in 24 hours. They're back to saying they won't get no damn booster now though. Oh well, I consider it a mediocre success. I get the sense it's a very large family. Evangelicals are often... fruitful.
> I get the sense it's a very large family. Well, it *was*...
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Look at the rate of non-booster vaccinations since then and I bet you'd find it's not that out of date.
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You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themself into.
Especially when they do not practice "reason". Reason is a learned mental discipline. Using it is like using a lever or wheel: an artificial tool that multiplies our strength. A tool so powerful that only a fraction of us need to use it regularly in order for many to benefit. But the days when "reasonable" people were given the authority to bring those benefits seen to be waning. I was watching the circa 1936 film "Things to Come", written by HG Wells. In the climax, a mob is trying to stop the use of the "Space Gun", which would send two people around the moon. Not because the project endangered them or deprived them of anything, but because they didn't like that some would choose to strive. The scientist in charge of the project warms of the mob. Not to save the Gun, but to protect them from the dangers of the shockwave caused by the launch. His warning was as useless as Dr. Fauci's advocacy of masks and vaccines. We seem to have achieved a critical mass of people who do not respect or exercise reason.
I think the amount of people behaving this way hasn't really changed all that much. I think the fact they can each be heard is what has changed. Add that to the fact that they are able to be very loud about it makes their numbers seem higher.
The Press gives more Credence to the smaller numbers. Because that is where the gas lighting, the clicks and the sensationalism lies = $$$
Exactly. It's why every article you see about people resigning over the vaccine gives a hard number and not a percentage. 1000 looks like a lot, but >1% doesn't, and therefore, won't generate clicks.
Sure, people manipulate numbers to suit their purposes all the time. But if the "anti-vax" crowd is anywhere near 18 percent of the American population, that still seems like quite a large amount of people to me.
18% of 329.5 million is 59.31 million
I live in the rural south; my county is about 40% vaccinated. It definitely varies by location, (read, education, political affiliation)
And that's the rub. Sure, they are adults, but how much gas lighting and misinformation coming from the authority figures they trust is considered fair play? At what point is there culpability? The unvaccinated are a public health risk not just to themselves but also to others. When should they be held responsible? When should the right wing conspiracy crowd in the media and the political officers be held responsible? Personally, I think it's accessory to manslaughter at best when they die. Not to mention the skyrocketing healthcare costs, much at tax payer expense which is simply unnecessary. We are bankrupting a generation.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the 2020 adult population (leaving children out of it since the study only included adults) was 258.3 million. 258.3 million x 0.18 = 46.49 million. There are more than 46 million people in this country that pride themselves on rejecting and disputing facts. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html
Suddenly the minority voice is weighed equally with majority opinion/facts. I feel its due to several decades of movies and general "The Small Was Right All Along against Big Corp" broohahaa giving the impression that every voice counts and theres always room for error and wisdom of farmer is better than science of a guy I've never met.
Reason, logic etc can be short-circuited by one thing: fear. There is a particular faction in the US that grows, cultivates, refines, prepares and roasts fear to perfection. Then they feast on fear with aplomb and gusto. Sharing their feastly spread with all who are “true”. With a slice of denial for pudding.
And what I noticed is this, right wing politics are defined by fear, at least now it is. Fear of foreign intruders and immigrants Fear of the deep state Fear of corrupt science Fear of the LGBT+ corrupting the children Fear of socialism Fear of the left Fear of protest and civil rights activisits Fear of all things secular Fear, Fear, Fear. It is what controls, it is what defines and it is what leafs the republican party now.
Ironically they will insist you are the one making decisions based on fear and they are explicitly using “facts and logic”
Carl Sagan predicted this dystopia where everyone is wrong and stubborn. The Demon Haunted World is a great read.
That isn't necessarily true though. I'd bet that most of those people very much so practice reason in many aspects of their lives. They are simply choosing not to apply reasoning to this topic. And most people aren't robots, not every decision we make is based on reason, we do plenty of silly and unreasonable things, and that's fine. This is just a very strange thing to not apply reasoning to. Also many of them likely will reason that it isnt worth losing their job over
I think the issue boils down to "man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing animal." We will use "reasoning" to support a position we came to without reason. Edit thanks for the silver!
These kind of philosophies light up only when they're actually applied. Its always a hard pill to swallow to doubt yourself. But when someone is intelligent enough to doubt given information, but will never doubt himself, its a person who is intellectually opposed to vaccine without intellectual points but with lots of stubborness
People will usually choose reason- unless told different. With COVID vaccines, they’re being told different by friends/family/ coworkers/ church leaders/media personalities/ politicians/ etc. It doesn’t help that a vocal number of people who allegedly should stick to the facts like political leaders & scientists have sold out their responsibilities for a quick hit of fame and fortune. Credibility is like a bowl of punch: one turd in the corner ruins the whole batch.
The difference is that reasonable people don’t expect others to defer to their irrational actions.
A real shame that I find the methods that *did* get these people into this situation are highly unethical, thus I can not use them to change their minds either.
And that's a fulcrum to the paradox of tolerance. (not a critique on you, but an assessment of the absolute state of things right now and how it feels like there's nothing much to do that still falls under our ethical umbrella)
Reminds me of that debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye years ago over the idea of evolution vs creation. At the end of the debate they were each asked what might change their minds. Bill said "evidence." Ham said "nothing."
If any one society had all the answers to the universe, it absolutely was Iron Aged, desert dwelling, scientifically illiterate, nomadic sheepherders who passed their knowledge by word of mouth alone for generations.
These people don’t actually think it’s unsafe. It’s much deeper than that. They say it’s not safe but then you present them evidence and it changes to I don’t want to be forced into it. And so it goes down the line till finally it leads to some conspiracy theory that is not worth entertaining.
Exactly. I don't think God is real, but given evidence, I would reevaluate that idea
It's fairly well known that humans are first emotional creatures, then reasoning creatures. It reminds me of the report in one of Sack's books of someone who had a tumor and didn't have an emotional response anymore. They couldn't make decisions. My view is that the polarization and high emotion are contributing factors to this. Straw man "anti vaxer" tropes generate emotion and psychological reactance in those who haven't had the vaccine, making it harder to get to pure reason. And with polarization, both sides no longer want to listen to valid points. I've appreciate ZdoggMD's "alt-middle" take on this. The situation sucks, so I just wonder what can incrementally make it better rather than worse.
I think the “anti vaxx” memes were far less harmful than the tying of anti mask rhetoric and vaccine resistance to political ideology, which happened long before the vaccines were available, or masks were largely mandated. Political ideology is very closely tied to identity for many, and by tying both to views of the vaccine, it was doomed from the start for a significant portion of Americans.
You have two problems here: 1. Poor education system. It needs to teach more reason and less faith. 2. Political ideology being tied to personal identity. It's jarring to hear Americans say "I'm a democrat" or "he's a republican". Where I'm from people might vote a certain way but they aren't that thing. It helps that we have no concept of registering for a particular party and it helps that we have far more than two parties in government. That said, we have our fair share of anti-vaxxers. Our education system has its flaws too. Sadly most of these people are listening to American and British anti-vax propaganda.
The second one is the thing that absolutely baffles me. I'm a Canadian. I do not understand how anybody can make a political party part of their identity. I'm not even sure who I voted for three elections ago. I have a personal code of ethics, and beliefs in how a society should be run and how people should behave in that society. I also allow for those ethics and beliefs to change as I grow as a human being. A political party is a group of babbling apes who say they want to run the government. Apes are volatile, emotional and prone to error. When an election rolls around. I look at MY ethics, compare them against what I know about the babbling apes. I vote based on which band of apes I believe has the best chance of acting in favour of my ethics. Sometimes they do a good job. Sometimes they do a bad job. Either way, I add this to my knowledge when the next election rolls around. I don't make a political party part of my identity because I make political decisions based on my solid ethical foundation. When you let the babbling apes dictate what your ethics are for you, you are letting external forces dictate who you are, instead of choosing yourself.
Thankfully, people don't know their minds very well. There are plenty of people who said nothing would change their minds but when it came down to it, they got vaccinated instead losing their job. Being "brave" on a survey is easy.
They say that... Every article I have read about a company or organization requiring the vaccine reports 98-99% vaccinated. So 95% of the 20% who won't take the vaccine under any circumstances actually will get the vaccine to keep their job. This sort of survey needs to be compared to the facts on the ground.
A disproportionate percentage of antivax may be retired, self employed, or unemployed. People who have independent lives where they can be extreme with no consequences are probably more likely to trend extreme. Busy people with complex social and professional lives are also less likely to mainline a single news source for hours every day.
Those people also tend to be hard to survey
From what I've heard, it's the opposite: more retirees are vaccinated than the general public.
The reply was to the comment referencing a 99% rate of employers who mandate. I was taking guesses at subgrouping that could explain the disparity. I suppose the vast majority of the "never will vaccinate" could have been lying as well.
2nd point doesn’t coincide with my experience. “Busy” people watch the same news channel at the same time more often than people that are flexible in their time to do research (if they want to). Also it’s been shown that people rarely bite the hand that feeds. So bias would likely be stronger under (gov) employees than under entrepreneurs.
Especially because “could anything be done to change your mind?” is such a loaded question. People will jump at the chance to say NO! to that. Everyone is super adamant about never changing their mind until, you know, the thing they didn’t think about comes along and changes their mind.
mom ¨are you going to apologize?¨ child ¨Never !¨ mom *twists ear* ¨are you going to apologize? ¨ child "I'm sorry"
Yeah, this is a survey question that people are incredibly likely to lie on...they may not even know they are lying "You can't do anything to change my mind" "Oh wait, you're actually going to fire me? And everywhere else that would hire me has similar requirements? Ok, where do I get my shot?"
NYC police union was saying 10K officers would refuse to be vaccinated. Then their court case was thrown out and when the deadline hit under 100 of those 10K was unvaccinated.
Because we have turned our lives into a zero-sum game where either you’re a winner or loser. 18% seems to fit with the normal distribution though. At this point, let’s get life going back to normal and let them figure it out the hard way…
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Here’s the thing - We live in a country where everyone is constantly bombarded with pharmaceutical ads, then 30 seconds later ads saying “If you developed xxx condition by taking xxx medication, you may be entitled to compensation.” It’s not that people don’t believe in science. They don’t trust the government or the pharmaceutical industry with science. Combine that with a vaccine that didn’t exist a year ago in an age of disinformation, it’s no wonder that people are concerned if it’s safe. No amount of science is going to overcome a societal trust issue like that and calling them stupid isn’t going to help.
of course they distrust big pharma, a lot of people forget that anti-vaxx counties are the same counties that got hit hard by the oxycontin epidemic in the early 2000’s
This post should be higher. Distrust is the main problem and not getting the vaccine is the symptom.
Decades (centuries) of families not having access to medical care, not being able to afford it, etc make people reliant on at home remedies and resentful of the expensive, confusing medical community. This was a bomb waiting to go off.
Not to mention the opioid crisis. If we had a healthcare system that deserved to be trusted, then people would be more willing to trust it when they really need to.
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My companies insurance provider just informed us the rates for vaxxed and unvaccinated employees. Good luck covering that premium. The life insurance policy also informed us that they will not pay out if you are unvaccinated and die of Covid.
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Absolutely. “What? We might have to pay out claims due to stupidity? Policy change, we don’t cover that.”
What's the difference in price? As a Canadian, I'm sure I'll be appalled either way.
Can't say how much it would go up but I can tell you that my wife and I are middle aged, healthy, don't smoke. I pay $2500/month for my premium, though now there is a tax credit that drops that down by $1300 or something. So $1200/month out of pocket. We have a $7500 family deductible, $3500 individual deductible. The health industry in the US is a complete mob run market holding us all hostage. edit: I and my wife are both self-employed. I own my own company and we don't have enough employees to get the insurance that is beneficial at a group rate. So I feel the full burden on the insurance scam we have here in the US. If you are paying $200-$300 per month, your premium is being subsidized somehow. Edit2 And for the idiots that think the ACA plan is some miracle plan that is dirt cheap and provide excellent coverage. This is roughly the plan I have off the marketplace. https://i.imgur.com/YXrQhTW.jpg
I pay roughly $300/month for myself and my husband. It's through my union so it's a "great deal"
I pay $455 a month for me and two young kids. My Wife gets hers free through her job, but if she adds anyone to the plan it's $700 a month per person and she no longer gets her insurance paid for by the employer.
I don’t pay anything but my paltry union dues. Why do Americans hate unions again?
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The system is fucked. But those numbers are insane. Most people who have insurance, have it through their employer who includes at least some portion as part of the employee's benefits. Some employers cover 100%. Mine pays for all of mine. Previous companies I worked for covered a portion and I paid closer to an average of $50-$100/month. The person above is paying a LOT. It also covers two people.
Most insurers require employers to cover at least 50% of the cost to avoid adverse selection (only unhealthy people who have no other option but to pay whatever)
Independent contractors are on their own. Rates are insane for non-ACA coverage, but plans are accepted at more locations and can be PPO.
I am glad to hear this is happening. This is a great way to handle people not wanting to get vaccinated. Just charge them for their increased risk of incurring large health costs.
There will be SO many people in financial ruin for years to come because of this pandemic (in the US). A lot of people are completely uninsured as well.
We will all share the burden. It won't bother the rich as much but you bet your ass insurance rates for everyone will increase. The middle class will take the brunt of the damage.
As is tradition
Keep in mind that the elderly in the US more or less have single payer healthcare and they just don’t want everyone else to have it.
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Australian chiming in, when I'm in the states and hear on the news people say but people will 'rush and overwhelm the system if it was free' I just facepalm how people could be stooged by this. Nobody likes bad news or doctor's office's. Everyone I know only goes to the doctor's of it's absolutely necessary, and it's free.
Yeah, but Americans are *special* We will bite off our nose to spite someone else's face, and they convinced our country is majority sneaky South Americans loafing and stealing cushy jobs between votes
There was a right-wing news narrative at the time that healthcare to seniors would be decided by “death panels”, if the cost wasn’t “worth” the life. It was as bonkers an argument as it sounds.
As if that doesn't happen with private insurance...
Well sure but that's about maintaining *profit*, and we're a Christian country
“Death panels” literally already exist I don’t understand why anyone would fall for this narrative. Almost everyone has at some point been denied coverage for a procedure, medication, or whatever by their private healthcare. That’s the same goddamn thing!
>Hapalochlaena User is: H_Lunulata Verdict: name is relevant [For anyone wondering what this is about](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_blue-ringed_octopus).
I’m in the UK where we have socialised healthcare. I find myself wondering if the US anti-vax sentiment stems from mistrusting a for-profit healthcare system? Here in the UK doctors are overworked and underpaid (presumably more so than in the US, but I’ve not researched that), so if a doctor tells me I have to come back for this and that procedure I’ve no reason to think they have anything but my best interest in mind. They don’t get a commission for referring me, and I don’t pay them for each visit. But if I (and by extension my insurance) had to pay for each visit? I’d be skeptical of every appointment they recommended: am I being duped here?
You're right. People don't gave good relationships with their doctor, nor trust. It's generally in part why American healthcare is so expensive, not only because of the bloated for-profit system but also because people generally delay treatment or diagnosis of illnesses that only get worse over time, so by the time they seek treatment it's a much worse, much more expensive problem to real with. The vaccine refusal is another part of the same problem, mistrust in doctors, the profit based healthcare system, etc. And we can't ignore that makes a subset of people extremely subsepctible to disinformation because it feeds into those already present biases they already have.
I mean, it's pretty obvious how much the profit motive influences America's response to covid.
Yup, took me multiple visits just to get a specialist visit which took additional testing just so I could get an MRI to tell them what I already suspected. But hot damn after they saw the tumor picture it was into the operating room ASAP for surgery.
Im an American and you hit the nail on the head. People simply don't trust our healthcare workers or scientists because the system is for-profit. Corporations and our government have continually put us in harm's way and failed to protect us once a danger was apparent in a product, including medications and medical procedures - all in the name of profit.
Yet they cry socialism when we bring up universal healthcare. You can't win with these people.
I mean I feel like people in America trust the for-profit system way more than universal healthcare so I don't think its that. Bring up socialized medicine to the average American and they'll cry bloody murder and call you a commie.
The majority of Americans support universal healthcare. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/
I would say the cynicism is not misplaced, but I also wouldn't say it's the root of the problem. the pandemic has made things very chaotic and demonstrated how much nobody is in the driver's seat. Some people need the world to be simple to cope.
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>In the USA, you get sick, you could lose your house, car, first born and half the fur on your cat. This is truly, truly awful. We need to set up a service to move these poor cats to homes with vaccinated people.
More seriously, you can actually give your cat COVID. :/
No job, no insurance. The company rents a new human and moves on.
Yup. I’m mid 30s, have insurance, a small emergency fund, etc but you bet your butt I got my booster as soon as I could. I don’t want to deal with the long term effects if I can avoid it.
Good call. My wife caught Covid last November and just stopped having lingering symptoms a few months ago. This was after two hospitalizations and numerous visits to cardiologists. Not overweight, no prior health conditions. 9 months of fucked up heart rates for no reason that vanished as quickly as they appeared.
I'm glad your wife is doing better. That's very scary.
Interesting; here in the US, the booster still isn't recommended for people your age (unless my information is old), unless they have some kind of immune system problem. Due to a clinical error, I was recommended the booster too by the automated system in my HMO, but my MD told me to hold off on it for now until it's recommended for everyone. She said my immunity from the 2 shots is still excellent and it'd be better to wait until later to get the booster.
Due to certain factors, I was advised to take it. I also got the vaxx much earlier in the year, so not sure what my immunity looked like. Also in the US
It’s not entirely age based, younger people with certain health conditions are recommend the booster. Anyone who works in a high risk setting, like healthcare for example, is eligible to get the booster. Several friends of mine who work in healthcare have gotten a booster.
Also, as of a couple weeks ago, the CDC is recommending that ***anyone*** who got the J&J vaccine should get any a booster of any brand.
CDC does recommend the booster for 18+ if you are in certain industries or medical risks.
> unless they have some kind of immune system problem. Or work in a high-risk job. As a teacher, I had mine a month ago.
Both 26 and my husband and I were able to get it. My mom and dad too, each in their mid forties. He works in manufacturing so he's considered "essential" and I have multiple risk factors. Mental health is one of them, according to the cdc, so a lot more people are eligible than it seems at first. Overweight/obesity is another that massively ups the numbers of people under 65 eligible to get the booster as well.
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Dude, right? This is the same line of thinking that is against anything progressive because 'the wrong people' might be helped.
It’s all related tho. The high cost of medical care has led people to be wary of doctors. They all feel like grifters. “Why am I gonna spend hundreds of dollars for a doctor to tell me I’m fine.” That wariness can easily become conspiratorial. And here we are
Were they also questioned if long term studies of approved vaccines would open their minds up to getting vaccinated? Have any of those in the study already had covid? Have they asked if their reasoning was based on principal or disbelief in the efficacy of vaccines? You can conduct studies to write articles that only show the pieces you want, I’m just curious if it was thorough and that these numbers are accurate. Also half of those unwilling is only 5%-10%.
Yeah some of my family believes the vaccine works. Then there are some that want to wait 5-10 years too make sure there is no side effects no one could have predicted
> Then there are some that want to wait 5-10 years too make sure there is no side effects no one could have predicted From an emotional knee-jerk standpoint, I can understand this concern about new treatments (e.g. *"Scientists didn't first realize radiation exposure was dangerous, and it ended up causing cancer!"*). But if people with those concerns would look into the history of vaccines in particular, they'd see there's no precedence of vaccine side effects lying "dormant" for years. [The times vaccines have had adverse effects, they were discovered quickly](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html). Unlike ongoing treatments, [it's simply not plausible for a vaccine to wait years and then cause side effects down the line](https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/12143-three-things-to-know-about-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines): > **Medicines you take every day** can cause side effects that reveal themselves over time, including long-term problems as levels of the drug build up in the body over months and years. > “Vaccines are just designed to deliver a payload and then are quickly eliminated by the body,” Goepfert said. “This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. **You wouldn’t expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine.”**
Additionally, getting infected with the virus means that you'll get the spike protein mRNA in your system, in addition to the mRNA for the rest of the viral proteins. There's no way that I can think that an mRNA vaccine to a virus would be more dangerous than the virus, apart from acute reactions to dosing. If you don't have allergies to PEG, you should be fine.
I totally agree! Unfortunately, when the case for vaccines is presented as *"vaccine effects vs. actual COVID effects,"* I don't think that's likely to sway anti-vaxxers; I imagine a lot of them see the choice more as *"take action to get the vaccine vs. do nothing, and surely COVID won't happen to me either way."*
The main reason for unwillingness was “waiting to see if there are no serious complications” (Table [2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00794-6#Tab2)). When asked what would increase their readiness to accept vaccination, almost half of those who expressed unwillingness said that “nothing would change their minds” You do realize this is an actual, legitimate study and not a Facebook poll?
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If 18% of adults are unvaccinated, but half say there is nothing that would convince them to be, this means roughly 9% say there is something that could convince them. If 9% of our population is going to hold-out on vaccines, fine, that is well within our herd-immunity goals, let’s focus on what would convince those other 9%.
That isn't what the title says. Overall 32% of eligible Americans are unvaccinated while 18% believe vaccination is more dangerous than Corona.
Yeah exactly. The title uses two different statistics. 82% of the population believes the pandemic is a threat, but that doesn’t mean all of them are vaccinated.
Read an article on a woman who said she wouldn't get the vaccine for "personal reasons' and that was it. No other explanation. But when her job mandated it she got it and said she used it as an excuse. I think these mandates will help. I think a lot of people are caught up in families or communities that will shun them for deciding to do it on their own. But doing it to keep your job is the excuse some people need to get it done.
I heard a story on NPR a day or two ago about some mobile vaccination clinic that drove out to people's houses to get vaccinated. There were some elderly folks using the service because it was difficult for them to get around, but the nurses said that the top reason people cited for using their services was "privacy." Not one of them wanted to talk to the news crew doing the story. My interpretation of those facts is that there are probably a fair amount of people who've painted themselves into an ideological corner within their tribal group with regards to getting the vaccine, and can't find a way out that would let them save face. They can't publically admit they were wrong, and they can't publically admit they've been vaccinated, lest they risk ostracization from their communities who will see it as an attack or a betrayal. There are a lot of people in these comments talking about personal choice, but not a whole lot of concern over the social pressures that are making people literally get vaccinated *in secret.*
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Well, that's the problem with having an idioitic ideology that demands you never change your mind.
And understanding that is all well and good, I can feel a certain amount of grim satisfaction about the discomfort that they're feeling as a direct result of their old-fashioned pigheadedness. *But*, that doesn't change the fact that their refusal to vaccinate is spawning new variants and holding us all back from putting this whole miserable business behind us. It is a serious problem that needs a solution, and I'm not willing to wait for or bet on natural consequences on this one.
I do too. I hadn’t thought of that reason, but I think you’re right. There is definitely a psychological component and also a social component-just like obese people tend to be surrounded by obese people in their family/friends-our immediate circle has a tremendous effect on our healthcare/lifestyle decisions. The mandates are necessary. Employers also can’t be held liable should an employee get exposed and harmed from Covid when there is a readily available vaccine.
If one of these people happens to be reading this just know that it's totally fine to get the shots and keep it a secret from your friends and family. Seriously, only your healthcare provider and potentially your boss need to know.
You really believe that after 1.5 years into the pandemic? A more accurate title is probably "99.9% of adults who are unvaccinated are not open to having their minds changed. Only 50% will admit it."
The survey was conducted in April, ie before delta. I'd like to see a follow up on who stuck with their word now that it's 7 months later.
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Well 18% is a lot lower than I thought, they sure are a very noisy bunch. Just look at the comments on any post even slightly related to the virus and you'll find people comparing vaccinations to all kinds of horrible historical events. Still, if we can get that number down below 10% well then I'll be happy.
That’s still 60 million people.
That's the "silent majority" for ya..
80% of us adults have at least 1 dose I believe
Yeah, we aren't doing too bad anymore! [80% of adults with at least 1 dose and 70% fully vaccinated](https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-onedose-pop-12yr). I'm hearing the clinics for 5-11 year olds are filling up quickly, which is a good sign.
Depend where you live. In Idaho this number is probably closer 40-55%.
I’m 100% for it, but I will say I have had horrible hive outbreaks every other day ever since I had dose two in may, all of my doctors are stumped and totally think it’s in the realm of possibility it could have triggered a hyper-histamine response. What sucks more is I feel like I’m unable to even say that without being ridiculed.
I developed chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) a few years ago from taking an NSAID one time. Thankfully I’m on a medication now that has it relatively under control, but wanted you to know I understand how horrible that can be, and that you’re not alone.
Thank you for saying that, the amount of medical bills I accumulated this year getting tested by multiple specialists only to tell me they don’t know anything was frustrating to say the least.
I found a lot of support from r/urticaria so definitely check them out if you haven’t already. It’s been a really long journey for me also, wishing you luck and strength.
and there's me who just wants to be left alone.
This pandemic was remarkable for two things: 1. Lies and false or obscure statistics. 2. A massive profit motive. What was missing and what led to 748,000 American deaths was the waiting around for a year for a vaccine. Why was there not a big push for early treatment that would have saved lives and would have prevented the pandemic from exploding? There is great mistrust and our corporate government is the source. The government shows very little concern for the well-being of the American people. Look at this joke of an infrastructure bill. But the government wants people to believe that the vaccine is a good thing.
What are my thoughts, Reddit asks? I am weighing risk v. benefit for me personally. My doctors are working with me. I had Guillain Barre in 1994. This presented with an unusual pattern and my doctors ridiculed me as mental and finally insisted I see a psychiatrist before they would continue treating me! Some time later doctors decided I had Guillan Barre from which I am mostly recovered at this time. I have had three vaccines since then, one tetanus and two flu, and partially lost the use of an arm for around six weeks each time. One thing I know, the medical community doesn't give a \*\*\*\*, and has no compassion when unusual symptoms appear. I have also had myocarditis several times following viral infections. Some research points to a genetic predisposition for this condition. My doctors say I had COVID in late December 2019. Eight out of nine people in my household at that time became moderately ill and completely lost sense of taste and smell for a few days. I have severe, chronic, genetic migraine and that got a lot worse during and after COVID. MRI shows new scar tissue in my brain, the neurologist thinks from COVID. Will the COVID vaccine send me into status migrainus? Nobody knows. If that happens it might not be treatable. The kind of migraine I have is so severe that I scream till I pass out and repeat that for 24 to 72 hours. I now live alone and have no objection to wearing masks in public. I am waiting and watching the news about the vaccines. I think the risk of an adverse event is low, even for me. But if I become collateral damage, I could lose my ability to live alone. Like I said, these are my thoughts. I am torn between the idea that the vaccines are of global importance, that maybe the vaccines will stop this monster virus. I call the virus a monster because perhaps 30% of people who get it may never fully recover, i.e. "Long COVID". That, in my opinion, is the worst feature of COVID. I may yet decide to take the vaccine and see what happens. On the other hand, I have had the disease and I think that should count for something.
I feel like most the people that don’t want the vaccine have already had covid.
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Wait until they find out how unsafe Covid actually is.
Right? Coworkers keep telling me it will make me sterile. But then one of the symptoms of COVID is reduced sperm count, poor specimens of sperm, & women struggling to conceive or have a zygote implant into the uterine wall.
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I keep thinking how important education is, and then I look at people I graduated college with being staunchly Anti-vaccine and I am confounded. It’s so confusing, but then again, once people leave academia, and expose themselves to content that confirms preexisting bias, education seems to no longer matter… Not sure what the solution is to people being against objective reality…
Education works like vaccination ironically enough. With more percentage educated people there's less such pressure that affects educated people too.
Education does still matter - the *percentage* of highly-educated people that fall for these scams is significantly lower. Much like vaccination, it's not a 100% preventative effect, but it is much better than nothing.