I've heard pro-vaxxers want to kick unvaccinated COVID patients from the hospitals.
I know. And anti-vaxxers hanging nooses from lamp-posts in Melbourne.
Fundies on both side should shut up, but the fact is that on this or any issue, fundies on both sides should not be allowed to set the tenor of the debate.
Distilled from The Guardian, published a couple of days ago:
Hospitalisation and death from Covid-19 in the US are now driven heavily (not exclusively) by the unvaccinated.
Yet vaccine hesitancy remains ... why?
Vaccines were portrayed as 90%+ effective against Covid. It turns out that even two doses declines in efficacy, to less than 50%.
Even the three-shot "boosted" experience 'breakthrough infection' (as per my household). In fact a daughter and her husband as well as my beloved have all been boosted and yet ... so, over time, the justification for getting vaccinated has shifted. Rather than preventing infection altogether, it's now argued as a socially responsible decision to to reduce hospitalisation and risk of death (the vaccines remain very effective at this).
In short, the main benefit of vaccination has been revised down dramatically – from preventing infection to reducing
severity of infection.
Time between shots started at 12 weeks and was cut to 3 or 4. Evidence suggests 8 to 12 weeks between doses provides much better antibody response, reducing the prospect of breakthrough infections while simultaneously extending the window of high infection resistance.
That is, a less aggressive policy would have been wiser – but the policy shows no sign of changing.
Successive boosters generates billions for vaccine manufacturers. Big Pharma have an interest in multiple rounds being mandated/encouraged, in as many places as possible (at as high a price as possible).
They have a clear interest in funding and promoting research suggesting that more rounds of vaccination are needed – and they have been doing just that, while lobbying governments to adopt their vaccines over those of their competitors.
According to the VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system) database, nearly 12,000 Americans have died shortly after receiving Covid vaccines,
possibly as a result of side-effects or allergic reactions from the vaccines. On the one hand, these casualties represent a minuscule share (0.0022%) of all doses given out, and are radically offset by the immense number of lives saved by vaccination.
But at the same time, 12,000 lives are not nothing – certainly no reason to dismiss fears over/ignore completely vaccine-related death.
In the US, pharma won exemptions from the govt shielding them from being sued should their vaccines produce adverse reactions.
Over the course of the pandemic, those in power, their friends and party donors have reaped significant financial windfalls from covid-related business deals. In the UK this was rampant.
The above can reasonably contribute to vaccine hesitancy.
Expert modelling and predictions seemed, in retrospect, to have exaggerated rates of infection, the numbers of deaths, etc, over a given period. There are good reasons for the models to be skewed in this direction. Nonetheless, policies have been costly for many – especially in education and the leisure industries. Plus the knock-on from financial losses, business collapses, social isolation, mental health strain etc. These costs have all been borne most heavily by those who were already relatively disadvantaged and vulnerable – populations already inclined to be skeptical of authorities.
For example, ethnic minorities living in poor housing, or multiple occupancy, or the tendency towards multi-generational occupancy, suffered heavily, as did those with non life-threatening conditions wheich were exacerbated by covid – eg. diabetes, asthma.
Nonetheless, those who express concern about the profound costs of Covid-19 mitigation policies are often derided as myopic and selfish.
With respect to questions of possible adverse side effects, the origins of the virus, pandemic modelling, vaccine efficacy, masking, lockdown, travel restrictions – both experts and policymakers have been relying on data that was extremely provisional, and the latter abandoning data when it suited. In the UK we hear 'follow the science' as if science was in universal agreement, which it ain't.
So we got a lot right, and we got a lot wrong. This is not unusual – it is how science works. The problem, however, is that spokespeople (and "Trust the Science" brigade) regularly concealed uncertainties, suppressed inconvenient information and squashed internal dissent in an ill-conceived effort to seem maximally authoritative.
At times there were blatant political double standards with respect to public health guidance.
Any of these factors could easily and quite reasonably generate skepticism about authorities and their advice, including as it relates to the Covid vaccine.
