Lots of pressure still on the unvaccinated, from both sides of the political spectrum (the only difference is the Mail reader comments are supportive of the unvaxxed):
A growing sense of frustration at vaccine refusers has been creeping into ministers’ speeches recently
www.theguardian.com
INTENSIVE CARE CONSULTANT: Too many people dismiss vaccination as an intervention they can do without or they believe the lies and malicious misinformation being peddled by anti-vaxxers.
www.dailymail.co.uk
Choice quotes from The Guardian piece:
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The health secretary has accused those who have chosen not to take up the offer of free vaccination of taking up hospital beds, damaging society and potentially harming their families as well as themselves.
The prime minister also began rolling the pitch for a possibly tougher approach towards the unvaccinated when he spoke of the need for a “national conversation” about how the NHS would cope with the Omicron wave and further new variants.
“I don’t believe we can keep going indefinitely with non-pharmaceutical interventions, restrictions on people’s way of life, just because a substantial proportion of the population still, sadly, has not got vaccinated,” he said.
A mandatory vaccination policy (@Nymzee ) would almost certainly result in a challenge to Johnson’s authority from his backbenches. Those same MPs, however, are also opposed to national restrictions that hit all of society to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.
Javid has estimated that 90% of the most severely ill in hospital at the moment are unvaccinated.
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Seems all pretty damning. No wonder many of yous have been sucked in.
But a closer look at the quoted data (relevant = what's happening right now) tells us the unvaccinated Omicron hospitalised
number only 26%. Javid's 90% pertains only to a very specific use of very specific ventilation equipment with a
total data set of only 154 patients stretched over 5 months...talk about cherry-picking!
So
taking up hospital beds: technically yeah, but as a percentage of total beds it's merely a fraction.
damaging society by being responsible for restrictions: basically blaming the unvaxxed for the vaccinated having to comply with lockdowns & rules...is that really fair?
potentially harming their families: there's no significant scientific consensus that the unvaccinated are more dangerous than the vaccinated, most studies show that once infected the relative viral loads & duration are similar.
What about the Mail (hit)piece? Choice quotes:
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unvaccinated status is what marks out the vast majority of Covid patients in ICUs around the country right now. '80 to 90 per cent' of Covid patients in the beds he was responsible for were unvaccinated. Almost all of the Covid patients in my intensive care unit are unvaccinated. Many are only in their 30s and 40s.
They require round-the-clock care at enormous public expense — every critical-care bed costs about £1,500 per day to run — while putting immense pressure on the NHS in terms of cancelled surgeries and growing waiting lists. The impact of the backlog in NHS treatment — a record waiting list of 5.7 million and counting — has yet to play out fully.
But I have no doubt that will eventually be shown to have led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and protracted, painful illness.
They have blood on their hands, and their deluded followers not only risk their own lives, but are holding the country to ransom with the threat of further restrictions and a New Year lockdown with all the devastation that brings businesses and individuals. It is difficult not to feel impotent fury at the impact their irresponsibility has had on my colleagues and everyone else.
As doctors, we cannot choose who to treat. But the fact is every bed taken by an unvaccinated Covid patient could instead be occupied by someone who requires life-saving treatment or surgery and who no jab could help. While some unvaccinated individuals are merely ignorant, others are deeply selfish.
Of course, in a free society, every adult has a right to refuse medical treatment, even if it could save their life, but it is clear to me that those who do refuse the vaccine should expect to face consequences. That's why, despite my instinctively liberal leanings, I firmly support vaccine passports.
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WOW...powerful stuff. No wonder so many of yous blame the unvaxxed, with reports like this one out there doing the rounds. Just look at that devastating language. The unvaccinated are surely deserving of their pariah status based on this?
But again, a careful sober look at the facts tell a different story. The
Weekly Surveillance Reports never had the unvaccinated taking up more than 3% of total emergency care bed space at any one time. And they have never outnumbered the vaccinated. Not even close. And if those unvaxxed were vaccinated, who's to say a good portion of them wouldn't have ended up in hospital with Covid anyway? The data tells us the vaccinated requiring emergency-care outnumber the unvaccinated, after all.
The
many are only in their 30s and 40s comment...looking at the data, there is about just as many in their 30s and 40s taking up emergency-care beds who are vaccinated. And as a total percentage of the population those who are vaccinated aged between 30-49 will barely constitute a majority (if at all). In terms of unvaccinated 30-49 year olds requiring emergency care, according to the official data, this group never get above 10% of total Covid patients.
So WTF is going on? So much pressure...
to what end? Well, what it
says on the tin...
to vaccinate the unvaccinated.
Surely...surely this must arouse some suspicion...as we know the double-vaccinated will
soon be classified as unvaccinated themselves. This pressure will be on many of you soon.
www.bbc.com
www.mdpi.com
