Will people go back to normal after a vaccine?

[bramling]

Nice to know there’s at least one though. Everyone I’ve heard or spoken to however has said they would want to wait a year or two. This isn’t in my social circle but just people I’ve been speaking to at work or overheard when out and about.

Many people are beginning to accept that the majority of the population is such extremely low risk (and/or think they’ve already had before April), and therefore say they would rather wait & see of any potential impacts in the population that does take this vaccine before having it themselves.

Must admit my experience is similar to yours - pretty much everyone I associate with either doesn’t want it, doesn’t feel they need it, or is hesistant.

Some people are sick of the virtue-signalling we’ve seen over things like masks, and are positively fed up with whatever they do to pander never being enough. It’s going to continue to be a hard sale to such people I think.

“I simply don’t want it” is a perfectly valid position.

 

[The Ham]

Must admit my experience is similar to yours - pretty much everyone I associate with either doesn’t want it, doesn’t feel they need it, or is hesistant.

Some people are sick of the virtue-signalling we’ve seen over things like masks, and are positively fed up with whatever they do to pander never being enough. It’s going to continue to be a hard sale to such people I think.

“I simply don’t want it” is a perfectly valid position.

The problem with such a comparison is that there's a big difference between masks (which may or may not produce a small change in the rate of infection) and a vaccine which even at the lowest figures presented show a 62% reduction in (with rates of mid 90's quite likely) the risk of getting infected.

 

[yorksrob]

The problem with such a comparison is that there's a big difference between masks (which may or may not produce a small change in the rate of infection) and a vaccine which even at the lowest figures presented show a 62% reduction in (with rates of mid 90's quite likely) the risk of getting infected.

Indeed. And even if you're not at high mortal risk of the COVID, it still sounds potentially pretty nasty as a "mild" case. I'd take the vaccine (if offered) to avoid that in itself.

 

[trebor79]

Why should any pharmaceutical company not be made accountable if any of their products cause harm, illness or suffering? Switching accountability to a Government for possible lawsuits is insanity as in effect the population will be paying for the monetary damages. These companies have far too much power and influence. It's a billion dollar enterprise.

Not really. Let's dial down the rhetoric a bit.
A government quango specifies the acceptance criteria, therefore it's entirely right that the government accepts any remaining liability. If that's too high, tighten up the acceptance criteria.
If the company fabricated data, then that's a different matter and there's no passing of that kind of liability.
And as someone else pointed out a free posts back, it's exactly the same for every other vaccine in the UK.
This is one of the times I am more than happy to leave all this to experts who know far more about the issues than I ever will, and are acting in the public interest.
When I'm invited to have my vaccine, I will have it without any hesitation whatsoever.

 

[bramling]

The problem with such a comparison is that there's a big difference between masks (which may or may not produce a small change in the rate of infection) and a vaccine which even at the lowest figures presented show a 62% reduction in (with rates of mid 90's quite likely) the risk of getting infected.

I don’t disagree, I just think a lot of goodwill / political capital / whatever has been urinated up the wall on masks, as well as some other things, and now we’re at the stage where a lot of people are no longer as receptive as they once were to doing things which aren’t directly for their own personal benefit.

 

[trebor79]

I don’t disagree, I just think a lot of goodwill / political capital / whatever has been urinated up the wall on masks, as well as some other things, and now we’re at the stage where a lot of people are no longer as receptive as they once were to doing things which aren’t directly for their own personal benefit.

I think it's a but more nuanced than that. I hate masks and a lot of other things, but I'm not going to cut my nose off and turn down a vaccine which offers a route back to living a proper life.

 

[bramling]

I think it's a but more nuanced than that. I hate masks and a lot of other things, but I'm not going to cut my nose off and turn down a vaccine which offers a route back to living a proper life.

That may be the case, however a lot of people are already sceptical about the vaccines to varying extents, and are essentially being asked to put these doubts to one side. They’d be far more likely to do that if they had some confidence in the government and their messaging. It’s quite clear this has comprehensively drained away over the last year.

 

[The Ham]

I don’t disagree, I just think a lot of goodwill / political capital / whatever has been urinated up the wall on masks, as well as some other things, and now we’re at the stage where a lot of people are no longer as receptive as they once were to doing things which aren’t directly for their own personal benefit.

I agree that a lot of goodwill etc. has been lost, however as long as it's not pushed too hard (like vaccine passports for going to the shops) then I suspect that over time people would be more willing to have the vaccine than is there initial response.

For starters 6 months from now the vaccine will still being rolled out (quite possibly not started to be offered to those under 40, or if so only fairly recently) and as long as there's no immediate concerns there's likely to be more people willing to be vaccinated.

Most reactions to the vaccine are fairly instant (i.e. significant reactions are likely within 5 minutes, whilst painful arms, minor flu like symptoms, etc. may take a few days). Only very rare things show up later, often with very low rates (1:50,000 isn't uncommon) however these teens to be much lower than many things we do day in day out (dying from a RTA in your lifetime is ~1:250, even in any given year is 1:20,000 - that's on British Roads which are fairly safe compared to the worldwide average).

 

[krus_aragon]

So say the death rate IS 1%. (Who suggests it is more like 0.5%) a 90% effective vaccine cuts the number of people contracting, (and therefore dying), by 90%. That brings the effective death toll to 0.1%, or more realistically 0.05%. That's literally the flu

I'm not an expert in the medical field, but I think the maths works a little differently here.

If a vaccine immunises you from the disease, then even if you get infected, you're not going to be suffering from it and infecting others for long, if at all. (Further research on the degree of this is underway, so said Radio 4 this week.)

The main way a vaccine helps the county is by reducing the spread of the disease. Do you remember the diagrams produced in the Spring, showing how if one person infects three others, then those three infect a further 9, they infect 27, and you end up with ~250 getting infected in the 5th round of spreading? And how social distancing reduces the number of people we might spread the disease to, and avoids that exponential increase?

Vaccines play the same game, but from the other end. Let's say (to make the numbers easy) that 75% of the population takes up the vaccine, which is 90% effective. 90% of 75% is roughly two thirds of the population that will have immunity to the disease. So if your day-to-day actions mean you might spread the disease to three other individuals, two of them will now be immune, and the numbers won't spiral any more.

That is what herd immunity is: a situation where enough of the population is immune (through prior exposure or vaccination) that things won't spiral out of control. And that's how we can afford to not vaccinate those who are clinically vulnerable to everything including a vaccine, or those that object on religious grounds, while still behaving normally. If people around them aren't spreading the disease, they ought to be safe.

If the disease isn't spreading any more, then even with a 1% fatality rate, you'll see far fewer than 0.1% of the population succumbing to it in the future. Most of that 1% who are fatally vulnerable will never encounter the disease.

The flu is as deadly as it is because we don't have an effective vaccine for it (because it mutates every year, and only a subset of the population ever gets vaccinated). While the jury's still out on how Covid mutates, we're definitely going to get far more of the population vaccinated, so it should become far less of a threat.

 

[DustyBin]

That may be the case, however a lot of people are already sceptical about the vaccines to varying extents, and are essentially being asked to put these doubts to one side. They’d be far more likely to do that if they had some confidence in the government and their messaging. It’s quite clear this has comprehensively drained away over the last year.

That’s the undying issue here I think. People are struggling (understandably) to separate the science from the politics. This can probably be attributed to the scientists standing alongside the politicians and delivering manipulated statistics and, frankly, misinformation live on TV. A significant number of people no longer trust the experts when it comes to Covid-19 and our response to it. Not only that, but I’ve been surprised at how many people I’ve spoken to who believe there is ‘something’ going on that we aren’t being told about. I don’t mean the crazy conspiracy stuff, but ‘something’ that isn’t necessarily in our best interests. They therefore want to push back in anyway possible, and not taking the vaccine is an obvious way to do so. I’ve had some very interesting and often surprising conversations with people over the last week!

 

[The Ham]

I'm not an expert in the medical field, but I think the maths works a little differently here.

If a vaccine immunises you from the disease, then even if you get infected, you're not going to be suffering from it and infecting others for long, if at all. (Further research on the degree of this is underway, so said Radio 4 this week.)

The main way a vaccine helps the county is by reducing the spread of the disease. Do you remember the diagrams produced in the Spring, showing how if one person infects three others, then those three infect a further 9, they infect 27, and you end up with ~250 getting infected in the 5th round of spreading? And how social distancing reduces the number of people we might spread the disease to, and avoids that exponential increase?

Vaccines play the same game, but from the other end. Let's say (to make the numbers easy) that 75% of the population takes up the vaccine, which is 90% effective. 90% of 75% is roughly two thirds of the population that will have immunity to the disease. So if your day-to-day actions mean you might spread the disease to three other individuals, two of them will now be immune, and the numbers won't spiral any more.

That is what herd immunity is: a situation where enough of the population is immune (through prior exposure or vaccination) that things won't spiral out of control. And that's how we can afford to not vaccinate those who are clinically vulnerable to everything including a vaccine, or those that object on religious grounds, while still behaving normally. If people around them aren't spreading the disease, they ought to be safe.

If the disease isn't spreading any more, then even with a 1% fatality rate, you'll see far fewer than 0.1% of the population succumbing to it in the future. Most of that 1% who are fatally vulnerable will never encounter the disease.

The flu is as deadly as it is because we don't have an effective vaccine for it (because it mutates every year, and only a subset of the population ever gets vaccinated). While the jury's still out on how Covid mutates, we're definitely going to get far more of the population vaccinated, so it should become far less of a threat.

Taking your 2/3rds protected figure (which probably is a probable outcome, even if we don't get to the 75% take up due to people potentially taking other measures, like those at high risk but can't have the vaccine limiting the number of people that they interact with - not this doesn't mean locking themselves away just being careful about who they interact with) whist there'll be some who infect more than one person there'll also be those who don't infect anyone.

However with no other protections in place rather than it being 1,3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2,187, 6,561, 19,683, 59,049, etc. It shifts to being 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, etc.

Now given that we're at 119,000 cases a week currently of we can get the R value to 0.75 the numbers start to fall away rather quickly from 119,000 to 89,250, 66,938, 50,203, 37,652, 28,239, 21,180, 15,185, 11,913. Therefore infections could fall to 10% of current values within 8 weeks if we could vaccinate 75% of the population within a week and had no other measures.

The problem is that it's going to take months to get there, however the good news is that there are currently other measures in place. As such case numbers should start to show signs of falling within a short timeframe (as even though you don't get 90% from day one, you do get some protection from within a few days of the first dose) due to all that's happening currently.

Therefore it should be possible to see many fewer areas in tier 3, and hopefully also tier 2, by Easter. Whilst that may not be normal enough for everyone is a good way towards it. With some other measures (test and dine/drink) we could get a lot closer to normal by that sort of timeframe.

There's likely to be some who like some of the measures in place (not masks, but rather things like more internet shopping, WFH, having an excellent excuse not to see the in laws, etc.) and so continue those measures even when they are not mandated which would help reduce the R value.

That’s the undying issue here I think. People are struggling (understandably) to separate the science from the politics. This can probably be attributed to the scientists standing alongside the politicians and delivering manipulated statistics and, frankly, misinformation live on TV. A significant number of people no longer trust the experts when it comes to Covid-19 and our response to it. Not only that, but I’ve been surprised at how many people I’ve spoken to who believe there is ‘something’ going on that we aren’t being told about. I don’t mean the crazy conspiracy stuff, but ‘something’ that isn’t necessarily in our best interests. They therefore want to push back in anyway possible, and not taking the vaccine is an obvious way to do so. I’ve had some very interesting and often surprising conversations with people over the last week!

Personally if I wanted to "engineer" the need for us to be "vaccinated" there's simpler ways of going about it.

In fact I'd use the fact that so many people have been avoiding getting their children vaccinated as the reason.

I'd find an area where there's been an increase in Measles and start an adult vaccination program based on the need to ensure high levels of uptake. If I was being mean I may even spread miss information about how there were some bad batches of the vaccine from the 80's and 90's, as well as blaming those immigrants who've come here without having the right vaccines. Furthermore I'd deliberately highlighting (through an over zealous media campaign) each and every death and other heath issue which I've said that it's caused. Obviously with the throw away line "this is only those which are know about, how many more are going unnoticed or intentionally hiding from us" (possibly even blaming immigrants further on that last point).

Then bring in a policy starting that you couldn't come into the UK without an updated vaccine (again blame immigration, maybe even create a bit of miss information about how the EU have stopped us from bringing in such a rule for to freedom of movement).

It would be much easier to manage and although may not create the same level of fear, would result in a significant number coming forwards for vaccination (especially if you wanted to go abroad for a holiday).

Then just microchip everyone. Happy days....

Of course on a more serious level, there's almost certainly lots of stuff that the government aren't telling us. Whether that's a reason not to be vaccinated is an entirely different matter.

 

[DB]

Of course on a more serious level, there's almost certainly lots of stuff that the government aren't telling us. Whether that's a reason not to be vaccinated is an entirely different matter.

I think the reason people are wary is the number of lies we have seen from the government, and the lack of direction.

I don't think anyone blames them for measures which seemed reasonsable at the time due to the level of understanding whcih existed, but things move on and there is more understanding, but no change of strategy, and never any acceptance that particular measures don't work (the standard response is that if something is not working we need more of it).

And the number of demonstrable lies and attempts to mislead do not lead people to regard the government as trustworthy.

 

[The Ham]

I think the reason people are wary is the number of lies we have seen from the government, and the lack of direction.

To be fair this could be leveled at a lot of governments over the years, it's just that the impact is felt by a greater number of people.

 

[Darandio]

To be fair this could be leveled at a lot of governments over the years, it's just that the impact is felt by a greater number of people.

Indeed, but rarely have they been so blatant and damaging.

 

[david1212]

Unless there already is real world evidence that I am not aware of until there is, which could be never, I am presuming none of the vaccines make a vaccinated person less likely to contract Covid-19 nor if they do then less contagious but rather essentially asymptomatic.

Specifically to face coverings / masks / muzzles since Covid-19 particles are no larger than the air we breathe a mask that would block an infected person from transmitting Covid-19 would also suffocate us. The only workable, if very impractical, solution would be a sealed mask with a one-way valve to breathe in and a tank to collect the exhaled air until it could be discharged in an open space. All a mask will do is restrict the velocity of and hence the distance travelled by the exhaled air particles, with the greatest reduction during a cough or sneeze. Coughing and to a lesser extent sneezing are one of the early symptoms of Covid-19 infection. Therefore in that situation combining masks and distancing potentially reduces transmission. Following on from vaccination essentially making a person asymptomatic if they contract Covid-19 they are far less likely to cough and sneeze. This diminishes the further reduction in the level of transmission from wearing a mask to being very low so why IMO the current mask regulations should be ended once the majority of the most vulnerable and elderly have been vaccinated.

What would be reasonable would be to request that anyone who develops coughing and sneezing wears a mask until they have had a full Covid-19 test and received a negative result, not just the less reliable rapid test.

 

[Crossover]

They give out flu vaccines at school now?

News to me. Don’t think I ever had them at school (20 years ago, for juniors) and I’ve certainly never had one since

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

News to me. Don’t think I ever had them at school (20 years ago, for juniors) and I’ve certainly never had one since

It's a relatively new thing. I think it started in the 2013/4 flu year as a trial, then rolled out fully the next.

 

[The Ham]

Unless there already is real world evidence that I am not aware of until there is, which could be never, I am presuming none of the vaccines make a vaccinated person less likely to contract Covid-19 nor if they do then less contagious but rather essentially asymptomatic.

Specifically to face coverings / masks / muzzles since Covid-19 particles are no larger than the air we breathe a mask that would block an infected person from transmitting Covid-19 would also suffocate us. The only workable, if very impractical, solution would be a sealed mask with a one-way valve to breathe in and a tank to collect the exhaled air until it could be discharged in an open space. All a mask will do is restrict the velocity of and hence the distance travelled by the exhaled air particles, with the greatest reduction during a cough or sneeze. Coughing and to a lesser extent sneezing are one of the early symptoms of Covid-19 infection. Therefore in that situation combining masks and distancing potentially reduces transmission. Following on from vaccination essentially making a person asymptomatic if they contract Covid-19 they are far less likely to cough and sneeze. This diminishes the further reduction in the level of transmission from wearing a mask to being very low so why IMO the current mask regulations should be ended once the majority of the most vulnerable and elderly have been vaccinated.

What would be reasonable would be to request that anyone who develops coughing and sneezing wears a mask until they have had a full Covid-19 test and received a negative result, not just the less reliable rapid test.

The Oxford vaccine was testing those on their tails and so even at the lowest level (single vaccine) saw a reduction of 62% of those compared to the placebo group.

Now given that they were testing and those tests showed no measurable levels of virus it is then impossible for those to be passing on the virus.

Now whilst the other vaccine trails weren't testing so we can't be sure if they just had no symptoms, however it should be noted that with a half Oxford vaccine and then a full Oxford vaccine the results were that 90% of those didn't get any measurable levels of virus and got fairly close to the levels of protection

The thing which isn't know (and because the numbers are so low who have been infected) is if having the vaccine and being infected then means that you can/can't pass on that infection.

I'm not going to comment on masks, as that's off subject and if you're interested in what I've said before look at (the now locked) mask thread.