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I personally don't know anyone that abstains from MMR/polio/chickenpox vaccines. I think this whole anti-anti-vaxxer meme has really got people riled up and ign

by toolz 5y ago

I personally don't know anyone that abstains from MMR/polio/chickenpox vaccines. I think this whole anti-anti-vaxxer meme has really got people riled up and ignoring just how many people are already taking vaccines. over 92% of kids have 3 doses of polio vaccine by the time they're 24 months according to the CDC. Something tells me that number gets much higher with just another year or two. It's a sad day for honest debate when being skeptical of an item gets you labeled as being "anti" an entire category of things to which that item belongs. To be clear I don't think your question is expressly stating that anti-vaxxers are a big concern, but if there's a genuine concern that a vaccine is well established to work, an incredibly large majority of people take it in the U.S. so I don't think the concern is warranted.

brokensegue 5y ago
I personally don't know anyone who voted for Trump. Who you know is not a representative sample. There are lots of vaccine deniers and they occasionally cause problems.
- toolz 5y ago
  which is why I gave stats from the CDC
  - brokensegue 5y ago
    20% of americans polled refuse to get any COVID vaccine. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033750072/the-share-of-u-s-adults-willing-to-get-vaccinated-ticks-up-a-new-poll-finds https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033750072/the-share-of-u-s-a... That isn't a small amount. If you don't think this has/will cause at least minimal problems you are mistaken.
    - toolz 5y ago
      What are these problems you speak of? We have countries like Gibraltar which has been 100% vaccinated since April of this year, they continue to have case spikes. It's indisputable that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission and recently in a court of law the Federal government went on record saying it lacked evidence that it even slowed transmission. That's why the courts overruled the CMS vaccine mandates in so many states. Personally, I think this vaccine has done a great deal of harm reduction and I'm glad people in at-risk categories have access to it, but pretending there is some big social consequence for these people not taking the vaccine is ill-informed. They might be hurting themselves, but literally no one who is alive for the next few years will escape being attacked by covid. Because no one will escape covid, there is no logic behind suggesting people refusing vaccinations is a social consequence. It's a personal consequence alone.
      - brokensegue 5y ago
        non-immunized people are more likely to end up in the hospital or have longer hospital stays. full hospitals result in deaths of immunized people. long hospital stays of non-immunized people drive up medical costs for everyone. etc. we live in a society. basically all choices impact others.
        toolz 5y ago
        this is some very dangerous misinformation. US hospitals were quite a bit less full in 2020 than projected back in 2019 (projections using pre-pandemic data). If hospitals are filling up today (I've not seen much data for 2021) then it most certainly isn't the unvaccinated to blame. You can't blame a minority of the population that remains unvaccinated in 2021 for hospital capacity when the hospitals were under capacity when the entire country was unvaccinated. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/trends-in-overall-and-non-covid-19-hospital-admissions/ https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/trends-in-overa...
        brokensegue 5y ago
        > You can't blame a minority of the population that remains unvaccinated in 2021 for hospital capacity Yes I can. They use a disproportionate share of hospital resources by refusing to get vaccinated. And some hospitals were dangerously full this year (and last year). I know someone who died because their non-emergency procedure was pushed back because of hospital conditions. And this ignores the vaccines' likely impact on virus spread or costs.
        toolz 5y ago
        > I know someone who died because their non-emergency procedure was pushed back because of hospital conditions. I'm sorry to hear this, but let's be clear about what happened here. They did not die because hospitals were full. Even the previous NY mayor has said multiple times their hospitals were never too full to take in patients. I also lost a couple people due to hospital failures. I don't blame anyone, it was and is a tough period, but if we did not instill mass panick we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. Hospital capacity is _shrinking_ nationally. For the first time in decades medical staff employment was on a decline. In 100 years historians will look back and baffle at how a medical emergency made the US decrease our capacity in healthcare across the board. A virus did not make this happen. Panic made this happen. My partners dad died many decades before he should have because he got really bad covid, was put on a ventilator, cleared covid and was recovering for a couple of weeks and then the ventilator failed and the nursing was so understaffed they didn't check on him until he was already brain dead. There is no doubt in my mind that had that hospital not decreased the wages of some 30% of their staff (leading to a huge exodus of workers) because society demanded they shutdown profitable procedures - my partners dad would no doubt be alive and healthy today. This particular hospital never approached max capacity even once during 2020. This was purely the repercussions of panic affecting healthcare.
thinkingemote 5y ago
People look for an enemy to direct their frustration about the Problem of Evil, chaos, impersonal viruses etc. Classic scapegoat behaviour. the pattern has been repeated throughout history. Usually the scapegoats become at least oppressed. It's also clear that the authorities are not pushing this meme more than the people. Which is also a characteristic and one where some in charge are capitalising on. Interestingly its also fear and worry at the root of this is the same as the "antis" and their scapegoat is those above us. Others capitalise on this too.
toyg 5y ago
We've had clusters of measles in Wales a few years ago, that were due to vaccine scepticism driving down vaccination rates below herd-immunity levels. That was a real event, that took more than a year to correct. And then you have all the circus they've built around COVID19. Antivaxxers are real, downplaying the risk they pose is dangerous.
- toolz 5y ago
  > downplaying the risk they pose is dangerous Over-amplifying the risk is dangerous. Wales, according to [1] has had well over 94% MMR vaccination since 2012. The herd immunity threshold for measles is >95%, which is very unique to measles since it's so much more contagious, but to blame anti-vaxxers for that incomplete vaccinated status seems like a likely wrong conclusion. Getting a 100% willing population to 100% vaccination status is _hard_. I see anti-anti-vaxxers everywhere, what I don't see is any evidence or solutions coming from that group, just people whining that "the others" are causing problems. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/380453/mumps-measles-and-rubella-immunisation-in-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/380453/mumps-measles-and...
  - toyg 5y ago
    2012 is when the cluster happened, which triggered a wave of people rushing to vaccinate. Before that, for about 20 years, the Wakefield-generated disinformation pushed vaccination rates in kids down to alarming levels, which inevitably resulted in problems. "Widespread sensationalist British media reports of the initial Wakefield studies led to a decline of public confidence in the combined vaccine [20]. Following the controversy, initial dose uptake fell from 95% in 1995 to ~80% in 2003 [21]. Herd immunity was therefore compromised, and measles cases began to rise sharply from 2007. However, uptake improved once more in the mid-2000s (with occasional outbreaks), following several successive ‘catch-up’ campaigns in which individuals who were not vaccinated on time were invited to get vaccinated, along with a gradual restoration of public trust [16]. By 2014, the UK ended endemic transmission of measles". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073967/ The problem is not getting vaccination rates close to 100%, but actually staying there when people stop seeing why it is important to vaccinate. It's entirely a communication problem, and legitimizing antivaxxer stances makes the problem worse.
raxxorrax 5y ago
It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If anti-vaxxers would not have been declared a threat to humanity and health, you can expect that overall rates would be much higher than they are now. Instead people made really bad arguments and people refused on principle. Suggestion for mandates will do the rest and probably will negatively affect uptake for decades. It is a very predictive behavior.

by toolz 5y ago

brokensegue 5y ago

I personally don't know anyone who voted for Trump. Who you know is not a representative sample. There are lots of vaccine deniers and they occasionally cause problems.

toolz 5y ago
which is why I gave stats from the CDC
- brokensegue 5y ago
  20% of americans polled refuse to get any COVID vaccine. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033750072/the-share-of-u-s-adults-willing-to-get-vaccinated-ticks-up-a-new-poll-finds https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033750072/the-share-of-u-s-a... That isn't a small amount. If you don't think this has/will cause at least minimal problems you are mistaken.
  - toolz 5y ago
    What are these problems you speak of? We have countries like Gibraltar which has been 100% vaccinated since April of this year, they continue to have case spikes. It's indisputable that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission and recently in a court of law the Federal government went on record saying it lacked evidence that it even slowed transmission. That's why the courts overruled the CMS vaccine mandates in so many states. Personally, I think this vaccine has done a great deal of harm reduction and I'm glad people in at-risk categories have access to it, but pretending there is some big social consequence for these people not taking the vaccine is ill-informed. They might be hurting themselves, but literally no one who is alive for the next few years will escape being attacked by covid. Because no one will escape covid, there is no logic behind suggesting people refusing vaccinations is a social consequence. It's a personal consequence alone.
    - brokensegue 5y ago
      non-immunized people are more likely to end up in the hospital or have longer hospital stays. full hospitals result in deaths of immunized people. long hospital stays of non-immunized people drive up medical costs for everyone. etc. we live in a society. basically all choices impact others.
      - toolz 5y ago
        this is some very dangerous misinformation. US hospitals were quite a bit less full in 2020 than projected back in 2019 (projections using pre-pandemic data). If hospitals are filling up today (I've not seen much data for 2021) then it most certainly isn't the unvaccinated to blame. You can't blame a minority of the population that remains unvaccinated in 2021 for hospital capacity when the hospitals were under capacity when the entire country was unvaccinated. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/trends-in-overall-and-non-covid-19-hospital-admissions/ https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/trends-in-overa...
        brokensegue 5y ago
        > You can't blame a minority of the population that remains unvaccinated in 2021 for hospital capacity Yes I can. They use a disproportionate share of hospital resources by refusing to get vaccinated. And some hospitals were dangerously full this year (and last year). I know someone who died because their non-emergency procedure was pushed back because of hospital conditions. And this ignores the vaccines' likely impact on virus spread or costs.
        toolz 5y ago
        > I know someone who died because their non-emergency procedure was pushed back because of hospital conditions. I'm sorry to hear this, but let's be clear about what happened here. They did not die because hospitals were full. Even the previous NY mayor has said multiple times their hospitals were never too full to take in patients. I also lost a couple people due to hospital failures. I don't blame anyone, it was and is a tough period, but if we did not instill mass panick we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. Hospital capacity is _shrinking_ nationally. For the first time in decades medical staff employment was on a decline. In 100 years historians will look back and baffle at how a medical emergency made the US decrease our capacity in healthcare across the board. A virus did not make this happen. Panic made this happen. My partners dad died many decades before he should have because he got really bad covid, was put on a ventilator, cleared covid and was recovering for a couple of weeks and then the ventilator failed and the nursing was so understaffed they didn't check on him until he was already brain dead. There is no doubt in my mind that had that hospital not decreased the wages of some 30% of their staff (leading to a huge exodus of workers) because society demanded they shutdown profitable procedures - my partners dad would no doubt be alive and healthy today. This particular hospital never approached max capacity even once during 2020. This was purely the repercussions of panic affecting healthcare.

thinkingemote 5y ago

People look for an enemy to direct their frustration about the Problem of Evil, chaos, impersonal viruses etc. Classic scapegoat behaviour. the pattern has been repeated throughout history. Usually the scapegoats become at least oppressed. It's also clear that the authorities are not pushing this meme more than the people. Which is also a characteristic and one where some in charge are capitalising on. Interestingly its also fear and worry at the root of this is the same as the "antis" and their scapegoat is those above us. Others capitalise on this too.

toyg 5y ago

We've had clusters of measles in Wales a few years ago, that were due to vaccine scepticism driving down vaccination rates below herd-immunity levels. That was a real event, that took more than a year to correct. And then you have all the circus they've built around COVID19. Antivaxxers are real, downplaying the risk they pose is dangerous.

toolz 5y ago
> downplaying the risk they pose is dangerous Over-amplifying the risk is dangerous. Wales, according to [1] has had well over 94% MMR vaccination since 2012. The herd immunity threshold for measles is >95%, which is very unique to measles since it's so much more contagious, but to blame anti-vaxxers for that incomplete vaccinated status seems like a likely wrong conclusion. Getting a 100% willing population to 100% vaccination status is _hard_. I see anti-anti-vaxxers everywhere, what I don't see is any evidence or solutions coming from that group, just people whining that "the others" are causing problems. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/380453/mumps-measles-and-rubella-immunisation-in-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/380453/mumps-measles-and...
- toyg 5y ago
  2012 is when the cluster happened, which triggered a wave of people rushing to vaccinate. Before that, for about 20 years, the Wakefield-generated disinformation pushed vaccination rates in kids down to alarming levels, which inevitably resulted in problems. "Widespread sensationalist British media reports of the initial Wakefield studies led to a decline of public confidence in the combined vaccine [20]. Following the controversy, initial dose uptake fell from 95% in 1995 to ~80% in 2003 [21]. Herd immunity was therefore compromised, and measles cases began to rise sharply from 2007. However, uptake improved once more in the mid-2000s (with occasional outbreaks), following several successive ‘catch-up’ campaigns in which individuals who were not vaccinated on time were invited to get vaccinated, along with a gradual restoration of public trust [16]. By 2014, the UK ended endemic transmission of measles". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073967/ The problem is not getting vaccination rates close to 100%, but actually staying there when people stop seeing why it is important to vaccinate. It's entirely a communication problem, and legitimizing antivaxxer stances makes the problem worse.

raxxorrax 5y ago

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If anti-vaxxers would not have been declared a threat to humanity and health, you can expect that overall rates would be much higher than they are now. Instead people made really bad arguments and people refused on principle. Suggestion for mandates will do the rest and probably will negatively affect uptake for decades. It is a very predictive behavior.