5 ms·

how's everyone else from the control group doing these days? things were never really that bad, discrimination-wise, here in South Dakota, but what was/is it li

how's everyone else from the control group doing these days? things were never really that bad, discrimination-wise, here in South Dakota, but what was/is it like everywhere else? (edit: wow I thought we were, as a collective, Largely Over It now—guess that's not the case! I'm glad things aren't as bad as they are in this thread where I live! one has to wonder though: how long will this deep-seated emotion-based discrimination go on for?)

TrevorJ 4y ago
Two doctors told me the vaccine may not be safe for someone with my rare condition (There's a list of medications and interventions as long as my arm that I can't take because they could literally kill me). In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter. Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer. Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. Try having a non-visible disability. It's a pretty common thing, actually. It even kinda falls in the same category - one of the workplace duties is to be vaccinated, and you have extenuating circumstances which require an affordance since you can't meet that duty. School teachers, for a very long time, were required to be vaccinated against TB. There's a long history of requiring vaccinations if you work or are exposed to other vulnerable folks.
  - TrevorJ 4y ago
    Yeah, I definitely realize many people have had to deal with this sort of thing longer than I have. It was certainly eye-opening.
curmudgeon22 4y ago
I'm in Canada, near Vancouver. It's mostly back to normal now, but for a long time: * couldn't visit restaurants * couldn't fly/take a train/take a ferry Still can't: * Visit my grandparents at their retirement home * Visit the USA The general opinion as that you should be vaccinated, but it mostly doesn't come up now. The government is currently passing legislation so they can better mandate vaccination to medical professionals as well as suppress dissenting opinions by those professionals. Based on the words and actions of the federal government, i've definitely felt like a second class citizen.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  Most homes for the elderly here require flu vaccinations for all staff, and some even require flu vaccines for visitors. Why is that okay? New flu vaccines are developed annually because it’s a seasonal illness, which makes them just as “experimental” or “novel” as many COVID vaccines such as AstraZeneca that aren’t using mRNA technology. Why is suddenly everyone up in arms about something they were fine with before? When you can answer this honestly you’ll start to understand the problem.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    The AstraZenica and Johnson and Johnson vaccines both use a relatively novel delivery mechanism (a couple viral vector Ebola vaccines were approved in 2019-2020). The Novavax subunit vaccine is at least an older approach, but assembling the protein fragments onto a particle is a new thing.
  - curmudgeon22 4y ago
    I can't comment to staff, but I've never seen a retirement home or similar that required any kind of vaccination for visitors. Not to say they don't exist, but certainly they weren't part of a normal lived experience here.
  - adamiscool8 4y ago
adamrezich 4y ago
in the interest of inclusivity & getting a more complete picture, a followup question: is anyone still continuing to get more "boosters" or whatever? are those still being released? or, if not, at what point did you stop? the second shot? third? fourth? did you ever take/are you still taking one of those non-injectable covid medications? I'm so out of the loop about this stuff because it hasn't affected my life in any way in months, so this is me genuinely asking to see where people are at with this stuff. I have a feeling that many people got the initial shot and maybe one booster thereafter but since then haven't kept up… but this is just an assumption, and a pretty big one at that. no idea about the non-injectables whatsoever.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Uptake of the boosters in the US is low. The one released this fall is targeted more closely at post-Omicron strains (dominant in most of 2022). Something like 15% of the country has gotten it, and only ~1/3 of the more vulnerable older folks. There's studies coming out regularly demonstrating that it is more protective against currently circulating virus than the initial vaccine. Covid deaths are still in the hundreds per day. Deaths continue to be concentrated in high risks groups and the risk of dying once infected continues to be higher among the unvaccinated.
  - Kye 4y ago
    A lot of people are holding off until some months after their last covid infection on the advice of medical professionals. Classic case of data being easy to misread even with the best intentions.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      Reported infections per day have been between 50,000 and 100,000 a day for months. If you assume that represents a medium fraction of cases, it accounts for like 20 million people not getting bivalent boosters (100,000 * 3 * 60 = 18,000,000). There's more than 250 million people that haven't gotten the booster.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

TrevorJ 4y ago

Two doctors told me the vaccine may not be safe for someone with my rare condition (There's a list of medications and interventions as long as my arm that I can't take because they could literally kill me). In spite of this, neither doctor was initially willing to put their opinion on paper so I could keep my job because of the immense pressure on them to get everyone vaccinated. Thank God, the specialist I saw came back in the room with a change of heart and wrote me the letter. Interacting with society during this whole time felt quite upsetting. It really felt as if society in general would rather see me risk dying as long as it kept them safer. Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. I really feel for people who've had to deal with that sort of thing for longer than the brief period of time I have.

falcolas 4y ago
> Being forced to go into my personal medical history to justify my choices was a weird experience. Try having a non-visible disability. It's a pretty common thing, actually. It even kinda falls in the same category - one of the workplace duties is to be vaccinated, and you have extenuating circumstances which require an affordance since you can't meet that duty. School teachers, for a very long time, were required to be vaccinated against TB. There's a long history of requiring vaccinations if you work or are exposed to other vulnerable folks.
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  Yeah, I definitely realize many people have had to deal with this sort of thing longer than I have. It was certainly eye-opening.

curmudgeon22 4y ago

I'm in Canada, near Vancouver. It's mostly back to normal now, but for a long time: * couldn't visit restaurants * couldn't fly/take a train/take a ferry Still can't: * Visit my grandparents at their retirement home * Visit the USA The general opinion as that you should be vaccinated, but it mostly doesn't come up now. The government is currently passing legislation so they can better mandate vaccination to medical professionals as well as suppress dissenting opinions by those professionals. Based on the words and actions of the federal government, i've definitely felt like a second class citizen.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jiggawatts 4y ago
Most homes for the elderly here require flu vaccinations for all staff, and some even require flu vaccines for visitors. Why is that okay? New flu vaccines are developed annually because it’s a seasonal illness, which makes them just as “experimental” or “novel” as many COVID vaccines such as AstraZeneca that aren’t using mRNA technology. Why is suddenly everyone up in arms about something they were fine with before? When you can answer this honestly you’ll start to understand the problem.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  The AstraZenica and Johnson and Johnson vaccines both use a relatively novel delivery mechanism (a couple viral vector Ebola vaccines were approved in 2019-2020). The Novavax subunit vaccine is at least an older approach, but assembling the protein fragments onto a particle is a new thing.
- curmudgeon22 4y ago
  I can't comment to staff, but I've never seen a retirement home or similar that required any kind of vaccination for visitors. Not to say they don't exist, but certainly they weren't part of a normal lived experience here.
- adamiscool8 4y ago

adamrezich 4y ago

in the interest of inclusivity & getting a more complete picture, a followup question: is anyone still continuing to get more "boosters" or whatever? are those still being released? or, if not, at what point did you stop? the second shot? third? fourth? did you ever take/are you still taking one of those non-injectable covid medications? I'm so out of the loop about this stuff because it hasn't affected my life in any way in months, so this is me genuinely asking to see where people are at with this stuff. I have a feeling that many people got the initial shot and maybe one booster thereafter but since then haven't kept up… but this is just an assumption, and a pretty big one at that. no idea about the non-injectables whatsoever.

maxerickson 4y ago
Uptake of the boosters in the US is low. The one released this fall is targeted more closely at post-Omicron strains (dominant in most of 2022). Something like 15% of the country has gotten it, and only ~1/3 of the more vulnerable older folks. There's studies coming out regularly demonstrating that it is more protective against currently circulating virus than the initial vaccine. Covid deaths are still in the hundreds per day. Deaths continue to be concentrated in high risks groups and the risk of dying once infected continues to be higher among the unvaccinated.
- Kye 4y ago
  A lot of people are holding off until some months after their last covid infection on the advice of medical professionals. Classic case of data being easy to misread even with the best intentions.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Reported infections per day have been between 50,000 and 100,000 a day for months. If you assume that represents a medium fraction of cases, it accounts for like 20 million people not getting bivalent boosters (100,000 * 3 * 60 = 18,000,000). There's more than 250 million people that haven't gotten the booster.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]