Glad to hear those on the mend are on the mend, and that those who want the shot have been able to get it (or, rather, those who have gotten it wanted it). And my condolences for having six (?) immunizations at once. That's not a choice I would do. Having a tetanus, pneumonia, and a meningitis vaccine at the same time was enough for me! (That meningitis shot was
evil.)
This is my last post on this topic, which will undoubtedly make some of you very happy. Gaslighting is not a good look, Durhamlad, but the English do it so well that I assume it's just second nature once you live there for any length of time.
Right up there with "oh, it's just banter" after saying something to someone as a put-down, up in Scotland. Then again, it's probably a cultural thing to which most of them are blind. The "just trust the experts, they'll tell us what to do" part I encounter so often in Brits could be too, I guess. They're fed it from birth - makes for a more orderly society? The someone with "qualifications" will tell us what to do because they know and we do not and we are content to leave that in some else's hands rather than take responsibility ourselves thing. And then we can blame someone else bitterly if things don't work out as we want. The people I met had definitely made that kind of complaining into an art form, for sure!
[Since we're talking about cultural failings, Bell's Palsy, they are writing, is most likely happening in people who've had "work" done on their faces. So that'll be about half of the population in LA, eventually and the rest of the country is safe. Except for maybe Florida.
(Ok, that
was snide and in questionable taste. Apologies to the botox/collagen set.) ]
The point of my original post was that they have not been telling people about the potential downsides of the shot in anything but a depreciating way,
if at all. As if they don't want to scare the kiddies. The vaccines are being generically touted as the grand savior of all, with almost no other details filtering down. Some people are incredibly desperate and afraid, and are glomming onto that like a religion. I don't blame them one tiny bit for that. It's the "whatever gets you through the night" scenario, there. It's a scary world to not have any hope at all in.
Did Dr. Fauci having the shot convince me to have the RNA version of the shot? Nope. But do I believe that he had the information he needed to make an informed decision in his own case, weighing all the variables? Yep. Problem is, I do not have all that information
for me. Yet. Do I think it was a good idea the he, and Biden, et. al., have the shot in public was a good idea for PR? After having a conversation the other day with someone who didn't understand what a microbe was (she was in law school?!?), it's probably a really good idea for them to have done that, come to think of it. For what good it can have done.
Unfortunately, there is very little known about this vaccine's long-term efficacy or long-term side effects. There is no way they can be known at this point. I don't believe that "the experts" are lying - they simply don't know. They can't, yet. It was a massive technological effort to get this juice produced this quickly. But, in the end, this is a huge gamble. It could well be that this is the incredible shield we all hope it is. Or it could end up being like shooting a pebble from a slingshot at the Covid. I do hope it's the former, but that's not a given. Right now it's an informed guess. They need to acknowledge that, but that's not how it's being "sold" to the public. Here, at least, and from what I can tell in the UK as well.
Again, the problem I have with all of this is what is
not being addressed in the PR campaign. Where it should be said that "it's our best hope" and here is all the data and this is how it works, and these are things you really need to consider as far as your situation/possible reactions, it's being sold as solid truth that you just roll up your sleeve, they stick you with a needle, and you go on your merry way and all is now better. The world will be as it was.
That is unwise. (Although, granted, it may be the only way to get a lot of people to buy into getting vaccinated.)
They can't continue to just say, "Oh, for most people it's just a little bit of a sore arm" and then pooh-pooh that there have been other side effects. Treating people like they are six years old - "just listen to the experts, folks" and "there, there, don't worry about it" and "any talk of adverse reactions is scare-mongering" - without giving people all of the available information so they can make an informed decision. It well could end up damaging the campaign in the long-run. A goodly segment of the population already have a serious distrust of the government, and public health officials are seen as their minions. That path might not end where the health people want it to go.
There
have been adverse effects with this new type of vaccine (mRNA). They are being reported in mainstream media, and in government sources, not just the tabloids. The general figures I've seen from the FDA are that up to 10-ish% of people getting the mRNA vaccine are having serious side effects. Not the epi-pen serious, but serious enough to disrupt their lives for a few days. That is with the first shot. (Yes, it's "up to" and not a straight "10%). The side effects are supposed to be worse after the second. As more happen, after people are told nothing will happen, Twitter and Facebook (and whatever else is in use these days) are just going to be smoking from all the posts about it. And, like that kiddie game of “telephone”, the distortions will run rampant.
Situations like the poor record keeping and serious adverse effects (including the two deaths and the case(s?) of transverse myelitis) that were associated with the UK vaccine's trials that were handled in such a way that it looked like they were being covered up? Not a good way to go with it. They should have been open with that info, and pointed out that the deaths could not really be attributed to the jab, instead of hushing it. Admitted that they had some serious record-keeping issues that resulted in some people getting only a half-dose, etc., and that they'd been appropriately addressed. (Although I'm not sure that kind of PR damage can really be undone.) Sweeping that type of thing under the rug just gives credence to the truly crack-pot stuff floating around in the "what-is-real-o-sphere" of the internet/private conversations for a lot of people.
For people who haven't had a nasty case of Covid, or known someone who had a really serious case of Covid, or had someone they know/love die from Covid, Covid could well beggar belief. Especially if all they know of it is are mild cases. That's the only thing I can think of that would explain people ignoring recommendations for how to avoid catching it in the first place. Reactions to shots are entirely more immediate. And will light up Twitter and Facebook and whatever other noxious social media there is, and scare people off. It can go so wrong.
Yes, I think it's way better to have that kind of a reaction to a vaccine than to have a potentially lethal case of Covid. However, I also know that other options are coming down the pipeline, and that by letting others be the guinea pigs for me I'll eventually have more information on which to make my decision as to which vaccination I will pursue, if any. I have that luxury. Thankfully. (Although I'm not convinced I didn't have Covid last September/October - whatever I had was really strange, and the Daughter had it, too. Knocked us flat on our backsides.)
And then there are the andi-vaxxers, who take it to a whole 'nuther plane of existence. I've already heard from one who is saying that people are saying that Fauci (et.al.) just got a shot of saline, or that it never really happened - something akin to a deepfake was foisted on us. (No, really.) The one with the nanobots in the solution meant to allow the government to track you is pretty much the farthest out, so far, that I've heard.
Smallpox and mouth pustules. That's gross, for sure! I'll see ya, and up you Polio.
There was that accident in the factory making the polio vaccine in the mid 1950s. Apparently a shipment went out with live virus instead of killed virus and gave people who got the jab polio, killing a few dozen children in the process. No reason to stop the eradication campaign, of course, and I and my siblings subsequently had a Polio vaccine (of a different type, after my parents decided to wait). But the damage that public health officials did avoid by just explaining what had happened instead of trying to brush that episode under the rug ....
Ya'll keep safe.
