Anti-vaxxers

volono wrote: »

You mentioned herd immunity. This term is a bit nonsensical imo. The Vax shots ,as we've been told do not confer immunity they only mitigate the severity of covid symptoms, yet we all need to take one to achieve "herd immunity".???

It is not that the term is non-sensical. Rather the issue appears to be that you do not know what the term even means as in how and why we use it. Or what vaccines do or how they work.

There are few - arguably no - vaccines that prevent infection. Pretty much all of them prevent symptoms rather than infection. So this is not at all grounds to disparage the Covid Vaccines specifically.

The reason we get symptoms is our body goes through a lot to deal with a new disease before it can fight it off. The reason we do not get symptoms again then is not because we are immune to infection like some magical Star Trek forcefield around us. But because each time we are re-infected our body is ready to fight it off so quickly that there is no time/reason to get symptoms.

Vaccines merely train our body to do this without the "payload" that makes the virus harmful. So when we are infected with the real disease - we can fight it off quickly before symptoms arise.

Generally however when you have an infection - whether you have a natural or vaccine based "immunity" to it - you are still somewhat infectious. The amount of virus you output to infect others is not zero. It is however greatly lessened than if you had no "immunity" at all.

The term "herd immunity" therefore does not mean what your paragraph above suggests you think it does.

The first thing "Herd immunity" refers to the % of a population that has to be "immune" in order to reduce the rate at which infected people pass on further infection. And once that % has been reached the viruses ability to transmit will effectively be reduced to the point where it will die out and be eradicated entirely.

The second thing "Herd immunity" refers to is that when enough of a population is "immune" then that immunity is also conferred second hand to those who are not "immune". The transmission quantity is so low that those who for whatever reason can not become immune or receive vaccinations etc etc - are effectively protected by proxy.

So when you or I become "Immune" - whether by natural infection or vaccine - it is not just ourselves who are protected but also those around us who can not develop or be furnished their own immunity. From reading your post you seem to view vaccines in terms of nothing more than what they confer on _you_ directly as an individual. I will not defame your character by telling you what kind of person I think that makes you - but I will merely say that _I_ would not like _myself_ as a person if that was the kind of way I viewed the world.

volono wrote: »

From what I've read from the C.D.C's own figures, covid has a 99.76% survival rate

The survival/mortality rate is not the only factor that has to be considered however. But the impact of a mass uncontrolled transmission. The survival rate for example is what it is _because we can treat the ill_. We artificially lower the mortality rate by saving the people who would otherwise die from it.

If transmission is allowed unchecked however then those who we can save overload the medical system and we can no longer save them. You can look to India to see this very thing in effect right now. The "survival rate" is a % that reflects the context in which it is measured - not the actual survival rate of the disease itself.

So a good survival rate is not an argument against vaccines and lock downs and masks. Rather a good survival rate is a reflection of the efficacy of those vaccines and lock downs and masks.

But I have heard comments of this form from many antivaxxers before. Comments of the form of "Why do we even vaccinate against measles when hardly anyone anywhere has measles?". They miss the point that hardly anyone has measles _precisely because_ we have been vaccinating against it. The ignorance and privilege belied by their comment is in fact facilitated by the efficacy of the very thing they are ignorant about.

volono wrote: »

The vaccines where developed quickly

This statement in isolation tells almost none of the story and shows almost none of the "Big Picture" of the reason we were able to bring the vaccines to bear at the speed we did. Too many people refer to this speedy development as if it is defacto a mark against the vaccine(s). It is not.

There are genuine good reasons why the process was relatively fast. And many of those reasons impact not one jot on the process or suggest we did anything wrong. But those leveling the "It was done quickly" comment want to act like it means we cut corners or were hasty or irresponsible and these vaccines are therefore to be less trusted as a result.

The process was speedier because of the world wide focus on it for a start. It was speedier because of new technologies developed during the creation of older vaccines. And it was speedier due to some parts of the process which are normally done in sequence - being done in parallel. None of these things would mean the process was any less stringent or any more risky.

volono wrote: »

There's a growing number of people experiencing adverse reactions to these jabs, I read Sweden has reported 30,000 and VAERS has reported alot more.

Irrelevant. These are mere reports. All vaccines have _reports_ of adverse effects. But many of the reports:

1) The effect is placebo or does not actually exist
2) The effect if it does exist has anything to do with the vaccine.
3) The effect is in fact because the person caught the actual disease shortly before or after being injected.
4) Multiple reports: In many reporting systems you do not even know how many _people_ submitted reports either. For all you know all 30,000 reports were made by 1000 people each submitting 30 reports.

Put in brief - citing how many people have put in reports to such a reporting system tells you absolutely nothing of any practical use whatsoever. All we can do with such reports is look for common trends and then use that data to incite further research into whether there is an actual side effect of concern in play.

Further 30,000 looks like a large number. But express it as a % of the number of people vaccinated and you will find it is almost nothing. Especially given this disease and these vaccines have received near unprecedented levels of media coverage and are in the social consciousness which will artificially inflate reports of side effects in the same way a Steven Spielberg movie many years ago resulted in a spike in people reporting UFO abduction.